The one feature of the Galaxy S5 that’s been rumored forever was the fingerprint sensor. Now that the Galaxy S5 is official, we now know that it does have a fingerprint sensor. We are hearing today that Samsung initially was looking for a third-party vendor to create the fingerprint sensor. But they decided to do it themselves, because they felt that a third-party vendor would not be able to keep up with demand. As many of us are expecting Samsung to sell millions and millions of the Galaxy S5. I would be surprised to see them sell 10 million in the first month.
Now, it appears that Samsung is facing their own issues when it comes to manufacturing the fingerprint sensor for the Galaxy S5. It’s being reported that Samsung is in an “embarrassing situation” of having low sensor yields, and they are now looking to form an alliance with a third-party vendor. It’s also being reported right now that Samsung is in negotiations with Crucialtec. Crucialtec is known for trackpads, but they are also a pretty popular manufacturer for fingerprint sensors. The plan is for both companies to manufacturer fingerprint sensors to meet the launch deadline of the Galaxy S5.
The Galaxy S5 was announced a week ago today. It has a 5.1-inch 1080p AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB/32GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot, 16MP camera on the back with a 2MP front-facing shooter. It also has a heart rate monitor on the back, which is integrated into the flash. And then there’s the subject of this post, the fingerprint reader. Which is in the home button, so you are basically just swiping up to unlock your device with the fingerprint sensor. Samsung is launching the Galaxy S5 in over 150 countries starting on April 11th. We should see it launching in the US in weeks following. Of course, that’s dependent on your carrier.