Xiaomi Mi 7 to Sport Face Unlock Technology, Ditch Fingerprint Sensor

Mi 7, 2018 flagship Xiaomi smartphone, may become among the first Android handsets to ditch the fingerprint sensor entirely in favour of facial recognition. New reports say the fingerprint sensor in the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 7 will give way to face unlock technology, similar to Apple's phasing out of the Touch ID sensor to make way for its new Face ID authentication system on the iPhone X.


This new report contradicts earlier rumours about Xiaomi using an under-display fingerprint sensor to minimise the bezels on the device. The company was expected to use Synaptics' recently announced under-display fingerprint sensor.
Display fingerprint sensor were supported by renders published by GizChina. The renders revealed both the front and back of the device showing features like dual cameras and an 18:9 display with minimal bezels. The edge-to-edge bezel-less display makes the device look similar to the Mi Mix 2.

Mi 7 will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. But not much is known about the device yet.upcoming in-display fingerprint sensor is indicative of Xiaomi ditching the technology completely. Vivo and Huawei are rumoured to use it in their upcoming products.

A few smartphones, including the OnePlus 5, OnePlus 5T, and Honor View 10 have already showed up with facial recognition, with a lot more expected to have the feature in 2018. Unlike Apple's iPhone X, all of these Android smartphones are expected to have both fingerprint sensors and 3D face sensors.


Earlier this year, Qualcomm and Vivo had demonstrated the in-display fingerprint sensor – even though the demonstration was on a prototype device, the technology seemed impressive, albeit a little slow. The slow response times could have pushed Xiaomi to change its plans and ditch the fingerprint sensor for its next flagship device, taking the iPhone X route.

Announce for MediaTek, Qualcomm Supported to Android Oreo (Go edition)

Google announcing the launch of Android Oreo (Go edition), two of the world's biggest mobile processor makers - MediaTek and Qualcomm - have announced support for the new operating system that was launched at an event in New Delhi on Tuesday.


MediaTek, in a statement on Thursday, said that it will be an SoC partner for bringing Android Oreo (Go edition) to smartphone makers and will offer support on Android devices with 512MB to 1GB of RAM. Go edition is based on Android 8.1 Oreo and this is one of the rare instances when support from SoC makers is available within a short span of the operating system's launch.
Google announced Android Oreo (Go edition) in India earlier this week. It is said to become available in the next few months with developers getting access in the latest Android 8.1 Oreo update. Google claims that devices running Android Oreo (Go edition) will have an average 15 percent faster app startup time and preloaded apps will take almost 50 percent less space on the internal storage drive.

Qualcomm, the other major mobile processor maker, also announced full support for bringing Android Oreo (Go edition) to low-RAM smartphones. The manufacturer states that it will be working closely with Google to offer an optimised experience on smartphones with a memory of 1GB or less. Qualcomm claims that this partnership will help leverage growth for both brands in emerging markets from South Asia and Africa.


Android Oreo (Go edition) is expected to be available running on devices based on Snapdragon mobile platforms in early 2018. Android Oreo (Go edition) smartphones powered by MediaTek will be available in the global market by Q1, 2018