Follow the headline link for another walkthrough of the Samsung Galaxy S5. More importantly, watch the video below to see the fingerprint scanner setup and performance.
As has been widely reported, the scanner only works when you scan your finger straight down, towards the bottom of the phone, making it difficult, if not impossible to unlock the phone with one hand.
I unlock my 5s as I’m taking it out of my pocket – it’s ready to go by the time I’m looking at it. I’d like to see someone do that with this phone.
How would it be difficult with one hand? (Serious question)
I haven’t used any of them but it seems all scanners have problems so aside from general issues even iPhone users have, where does a swipe down become difficult with one hand?
With one hand, you only have your thumb available, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to swipe it correctly.
Hrmm…I doubt that. The demo I saw on Android Central didn’t seem to have a problem swiping with a thumb.
Maybe the assumption is your thumb has to be 100% vertical to swipe. Is that what you guys mean? If so and if that is true, I’d agree.
I suppose it depends on how you swipe it when you register it.
I haven’t seen a demo of someone registering their thumbprint one handed. If it works, then it isn’t really a problem.
He should swipe a digit that he didn’t use when teaching it to see if the thumb recognition is a feature or a bug
If you put as much time into something worthwhile as you do defending Google and Samsung, you might have been a billionaire by now. (Unless that’s what Google and Samsung are paying you)
You guys are hilarious. If a group of lemmings is your desired “community” here, then I definitely don’t belong.
Also, you have no idea who you’re speaking to so assuming I’m not well off or focused on something worthwhile is a far stretch.
Have a good day.
Actually, I went to the video again and I remembered it incorrectly. They used the index finger while holding it with the other hand.
http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s5-hands-and-initial-review
You can see it about 1:25’sh in the video.
I wonder how many fingers you can scan. I guess you could do multiple angles but more info here is definitely needed to know for sure.
People were pretty panicked about the privacy and security of the fingerprints being stored on iPhones. I wonder what steps Samsung has taken to make sure no one can steal fingerprints off a phone.
Swipe readers are directional and more strict in orientation of the fingers. In contra, I just unlock my iPhone 5s upside down. I registered my finger in the normal holding position. I’d be delightedly surprise if the G5S can recognize the finger print if swipe upside down in the opposition direction the finger was registered.
Hrmm…great point. I wonder how they’re doing it. No one has mentioned it in any of the reviews [I’ve seen].
I’m wondering if this is the Printy I know.
Understandable but just like the iPhone where you have to record your finger all over the Home button couldn’t you just record the swipe in different directions/positions?
I don’t know much about the tech but have read before the swipe tech has more problems. I’m interested in seeing a real dive into the scanner from a non-partisan view.
These guys are just hilarious.
It seems as though during their “learning process” they are really just taking 8 “images” of your print and then during the unlock process running your swipe through that library of scans instead of building a cohesive print during the learning process.
Not exactly. I did not registered my thumb in the upside down position and yet I’m able to unlock it upside down. Regardless, I’d be interested to see more experimentation done on the GS5 sensor.
I wasn’t saying you had to do it upside down just that you have to move your finger around so it can have full coverage.
Agreed, need to learn more.
Can’t you just record it scanning sideways so that to unlock you can swipe sideways?
Get ready for the inevitable flood of “fingerprint scanning just isn’t that important to me” posts from Android Apologists. They’ll remain in denial even as Apple revolutionizes retail sales with TouchID, iBeacons, and those 600 million iTunes accounts.
My bet is that this feature will, like many other Samsung innovations, be rarely used. It sounds fine until you realize its just too finicky. I’m sure some people don’t use the sensor on the 5S but it is very effective and useable. This is a feature that Samsung deemed necessary to “check off” and they’d have been criticized as being left behind if they had left it out. But having a feature and having it be used are not the same.
Sammy has the tendency to do a bunch of demoware [as released features] but I think this one will get used ’cause it is front and center.
That’s what I figure. I’m sure The Verge/etc will do a deep dive soon enough.
You’re right that they can ride on Apple’s coattails to a degree in terms of user awareness but implementation is key. The iPhone 5S scanner just works (in my experience). If the S5 scanner is as good, it’ll be as popular. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung loosened the security accuracy (i.e. made the scanner a bit less discriminatory) in order to increase the frequency of times it OK’s the read. These scanners are quickly abandoned by users if they become unpredictable as the alternative password input isn’t that inconvenient.
I agree: the implementation is key.
I don’t hold high hopes for Samsung doing a better implementation than Apple. Heck, Apple has had a fair amount of scanner problems using, what many deem, better tech than the swipe method. Surely Sammy’s will suffer a worse fate.
I missed this from The Verge’s review:
“Samsung’s version requires a vertical swipe over the home button to activate the scanner, and we found it to be quite unreliable and virtually impossible to activate when holding the phone in one hand. It can store up to three different digits, but it was very particular about the speed and orientation of the swiping motion used — if we weren’t doing a perfectly straight swipe down, it would refuse to unlock the phone.”
– http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5441668/samsung-galaxy-s5-announcement-launch
There you have it. Canucker, LMTP, etc seemed to have it right. It is poorly implemented and not easy to use.