MANILA, Philippines – Vivo has launched a new phone with an intriguing, new feature that, at the moment, makes it very unique in the market: in-display fingerprint scanning technology.

What is it? It’s simply a fingerprint scanner used to unlock phones via registered fingerprints, but unlike traditional scanners, Vivo’s is built right into the screen itself.

Other phones with an in-display fingerprint scanner are the Vivo X20 Plus UD, the first commercially-available phone to feature the tech; the Huawei Porsche Design Mate RS, unveiled in March 2018 together with the P20 phones; and the Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Edition, unveiled in May 2018, and currently only available in China. 

But it was Vivo which first showed off the technology. The company showcased it at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, USA, back in January, where it turned heads not just because of its novelty but also of its practicality.

With an in-display fingerprint sensor on the screen itself, the phone doesn’t need to allocate some space for a fingerprint sensor, typically on the bottom portion of the phone’s front. The result: more screen space without having to move the fingerprint scanner on the back. 

Now, just a little over 5 months since the technology was introduced, it’s coming to a mass-produced product: the Vivo X21. Just press your registered finger on the indicated portion of the screen, and the phone unlocks. The screen shows an indicator whenever it detects movement. Along with fingerprint unlocking, the phone has a face unlock feature.

The X21 is a flagship device with a 6.28-inch 19:9 full HD+ Super AMOLED display, a 90.3% screen-to-body ratio, a notch, a glass back, and a slim profile. It has 12MP + 5MP rear cameras, and a 12MP front shooter, fast-focusing technology, and AI scene recognition technology, to name some of its photography features.

It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660AIE chip, and has 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 3200 mAh battery. It comes with the Funtouch OS 4.0, a mobile operating system based on Android 8.1.

The phone will retail for P29,999, and will be available starting Friday, June 22, in the Philippines. – Rappler.com