Samsung official says the Galaxy Note 8 won’t have an in-screen fingerprint scanner

As recently as yesterday there were rumors that the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 would have a fingerprint scanner built into the screen, but it seems that’s probably not to be, as a Samsung official has reportedly said as much.

Speaking to Naver, the unnamed official said, "We made every effort to install a display-integrated fingerprint sensor on Galaxy Note 8, but we decided not to install it on this strategic phone due to various technical limitations such as security."

This is pretty close to an official confirmation that it won’t be happening, but that doesn’t necessarily mean previous leaks that suggested the Galaxy Note 8 would have a fingerprint scanner in the display were wrong, rather they could just have been based on prototypes, since according to this statement Samsung did attempt to include an in-screen scanner.

Work goes on

And the good news is that according to the article Samsung hasn’t given up on its dreams of building a fingerprint scanner into a screen, there’s just more work to do, so maybe we’ll see the tech in the Samsung Galaxy S9. But as for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, that will presumably have a scanner on the back, just like the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Interestingly, the article also claims that Apple has succeeded in building a fingerprint scanner into the screen of the iPhone 8, but it’s not clear where it got this information from. Many rumors say as much, but there’s not been anything close to a confirmation yet.

If Apple has succeeded it will probably be first to market with the tech, as the iPhone 8 is expected to launch in September or October. Samsung could have beaten Apple to the punch, as the Note 8 is rumored to be landing in August, but now it looks like we won’t see a Samsung handset with an in-screen fingerprint scanner until at least 2018.