Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Likely to Skip Under-Display Fingerprint Sensor: KGI

Samsung is reportedly planning to ditch the in-display fingerprint sensing technology on its next flagship smartphone due to “technical” reasons.

According to a new note from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via MacRumors), Samsung is not expected to have their under display fingerprint technology ready for the launch of this year’s Galaxy Note 9.

“According to our understanding of the technologies, under-display fingerprint solutions may currently have many technical issues (e.g. screen protectors and different environments affecting recognition rates and power-consumption),” report quotes Kuo from one of the notes to investors.

Some of the challenges that Samsung is facing include an issue with screen protectors and other situations that can adversely affect the success rate of the in-display fingerprint scanner. Samsung is said to have already tested ultrasonic and optical solutions, but neither have met the company’s standards.

Kuo specifically said that it’s “likely” that Samsung will decide to drop the feature for the Galaxy Note 9, so there’s still a slim chance that the South Korean phone maker may still move forward with the technology.

Kuo last year made a similar statement about Galaxy S9 and S9+, saying that the two phones would come with traditional fingerprint sensor, which indeed ended up being the case. Kuo then added that Samsung could introduce an in-screen fingerprint sensor in Galaxy Note 9.

Despite the technical issues hampering under-the-display fingerprint scanners, Kuo is still bullish on the technology, at least in the long term. He claims that it is “key for full-screen designs” and that facial recognition — as seen in the iPhone X — cannot fully replace fingerprint scanning.

Rumors that both Samsung and Apple plan to introduce this type of fingerprint scanner in one of their flagship phones have been around for years, but none of them have come to fruition. The only phone maker that has actually brought a smartphone with an under-the-display fingerprint scanner to market is Vivo, but its X20 Plus is currently only available in China.

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