OnePlus 6T Confirmed To Arrive With In-Display Fingerprint Sensor

OnePlus has confirmed that the upcoming OnePlus 6T will arrive with an in-display fingerprint scanner. The phone maker also revealed its upcoming flagship Android phone will be a little thicker than the OnePlus 6.

OnePlus confirmed the inclusion of the in-display fingerprint sensor to CNET. The company revealed that it will be calling the new feature of the OnePlus 6T Screen Unlock. OnePlus said that the addition of a fingerprint sensor underneath the display is part of the company’s plan to offer multiple ways of unlocking their phones and the new mode also reduces the steps necessary to unlock their screen.

“We unlock our phones multiple times a day, and Screen Unlock reduces the number of steps to complete the action,” the company said in an email sent to CNET. “By adding this feature as an addition to other display unlocking options such as Face Unlock, users will have options to unlock the display in a way that is most efficient for them.”

The only other smartphones that feature in-display fingerprint sensors are the Vivo V11, X20 Plus UD, X21 and the Vivo Nex. Huawei’s Porsche Design Mate RS also comes with finger-on-display (FOD) technology, but customers have to pay a premium price of roughly $2,091 in order to get it. Although no pricing information has been revealed yet, it’s very likely that the OnePlus 6T won’t be that expensive.

Rumors of an in-display fingerprint scanner for the OnePlus 6T first sparked last week when an alleged box for the smartphone surfaced online. It featured an illustration of the handset showing a fingerprint icon on the bottom portion of its display. The illustration in the product packaging also showed that the OnePlus 6T may come with a “waterdrop” notch design that’s similar to the Oppo R17 Pro.

OnePlus also revealed that it originally wanted to bring the in-display fingerprint scanner to the OnePlus 5T last year, but it decided to delay it until the OnePlus 6T. The company said that the “technology wasn’t mature enough to meet [OnePlus’] standards for delivering a fast and smooth user experience.”

The OnePlus 6T will be housing an optical sensor, which uses the light emitted from the display to capture an image of the user’s fingerprint. This also means that the handset will have an OLED display, since optical sensors only work with that type of display panel, as pointed out by The Verge.

The OnePlus 6T will be the very first OnePlus phone to feature the technology, which is also why the company had to give it a slight redesign from the OnePlus 6. The company said that the 6T will be 0.45mm thicker than the 6. OnePlus also had to rearrange some of the handset’s internal components. In addition, the OnePlus 6T will have a unibody look since it won’t have a rear fingerprint sensor.

The OnePlus 6T might launch this coming October, but no specific date was given by the company. Previous rumors suggest that the upcoming handset will be available widely in the United States through T-Mobile.