5 phones with fingerprint scanners on the side

Fingerprint readers are par for the course with today's flagships, and even midrange handsets, as more and more mobile payment systems require an extra level of authentication to work just like your credit or debit card. Moreover, we are getting accustomed to use them for unlocking our phones, securely launching apps, and so on. Some sensor areas even offer extra functionality, like back navigation, or swiping through the interface.

The ubiquity of fingerprint scanners today comes with a price, though. Manufacturers are usually embedding the reader in the home keys beneath the display, which calls for an obligatory physical clicker there, and makes creating phones with excellent screen-to-body ratio more problematic. Granted, the new Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+ have a fingerprint reader built into the physical home key, and still boast the best screen-to-body ratio for their display diagonal, but Apple, for instance, which uses a circular home key, seems destined to make phones that are quite large for their panel size because of that. 

There are a few companies that do away with the finger-scanner-in-the-home-key paradigm, like Huawei, for example. It placed the reader of the Mate7 on its back, for instance, achieving excellent screen-to-body-ratio on the huge phablet. That is still not an ideal solution, though, as you can't unlock the phone or authorize payments with it when lying face-up on the desk, for example. That is why Huawei introduced a unique fingerprint scanner placement with the new Honor 7i, moving it on the left side, directly under your finger at all times. In fact, many of you prefer it this way, as our recent polling shows, and are likely to use the finger scanner more when it is positioned on the side.

This seemingly opened the floodgates for utilizing Fingerprint Cards' thinnest FPC1145 finger scanning module in power/lock keys, as after the Honor 7i, we had a few more phones announced with these fingerprint sensing solutions, check them out below:

The other unique feature of the Honor 7i, besides the dual-use 13 MP camera that can be flipped to take selfies, is the fingerprint sensor, which has been mounted on the side, allowing Huawei to boast very high screen-to-body ratio for the Honor 7i. Other than those, the Honor 7i is a powerful midranger, with a 5.2" 1080p display, Snapdragon 616 SoC, 2 GB/3 GB of RAM, and 16 GB/32 GB of internal memory, as well as a 3100 mAh battery to back it all up.

At IFA 2015, Sony unveiled its most ambitious smartphone project to date - a complete Xperia Z5 portfolio, which includes a 4.6" Z5 Compact, a 5.2" Z5, and a whopping 5.5" 4K Z5 Premium. The trio is outfitted with a fast Snapdragon 810 chipset and an exclusive 23 MP Exmor RS camera sensor that lets them focus record fast. That's not all there is to those puppies, though, as they have an ergonomic fingerprint scanner fitted in the side power key, and are waterproof, not to mention the usual two-day battery life you can expect from most Sony phones now.

The crowdfunded phone project is headed by some bright ex-Googler minds, resulting in a phone that is tethered to the cloud like no other, relieving you of the stress around backups or limited storage. The unorthodox looking Robin is well-spec'd, and come with a finger scanner embedded in the lock key, adding to its cool factor.