Google held an even in San Francisco today and officially unveiled the Nexus 5X, which is essentially the 2015 reboot of the LG Nexus 5 from 2013. There are some subtle similarities between the new phone and the previous model, the most obvious of course being that LG themselves manufactured the phone, and it appears LG has used a similar looking soft touch plastic for the phone housing with two of the same colors, White and Black, and a third color, Ice Blue, instead of the Red seen on the original model from two years ago. On the inside things are mostly different though with some touch ups and improved hardware to fit the times.
Not everything on the outside is similar though, as the Nexus 5X now comes equipped with a fingerprint sensor which Google has appropriately named “Nexus Imprint,” making it one of the first Nexus devices to come with the technology alongside the Nexus 6P from Huawei which also houses a fingerprint sensor on the back. Google states that on average, people unlock their phones about 100 times a day, and with the all new fingerprint sensor on the back they no longer have to mess around with passwords or PIN numbers. With the Nexus 5X’ new Nexus Imprint used for fingerprint sensor verification, users can unlock their device just by touching the sensor, making things simpler and faster.
The fingerprint sensor will also be used for verification during the use with Android Pay which has now already officially launched, and is live in a number of different retail locations with support from quite a few banking institutions. Alongside these two scenarios, users can also employ the fingerprint sensor for authorizing purchases on the Play Store and can be utilized by third party apps as they made the fingerprint sensors open so developers could utilize their capabilities. For a bit of added peace of mind, Google is encrypting the fingerprint sensors to keep the authentication a little more secure for users, something which has always been a priority for Google. The fingerprint sensors are said to be extremely quick at authenticating users fingerprints, which should make the use of things like Android Pay a lot easier when consumers are trying to speed through at checkout stands. According to Google the sensor requires just a simple tap, so using it should be simple and quick.