Are you fed up of wasting literally seconds a day unlocking your phone with your fingerprint or your face? Chinese smartphone maker Realme has an answer to this non-problem with its GT5 Pro handset.
It’ll unlock your phone with a scan of your palm print, something Realme says is faster than facial recognition thanks to machine learning trained on over 10,000 models.
Just show your palm to the front-facing camera, pull it backwards and the phone will magically unlock. This slightly unnatural motion makes us suspect that the camera is being woken up by an ultrasonic proximity sensor, otherwise the camera would have to be on all the time which would be a bit unnessesary.
There’s still a built-in under-display fingerprint reader, just in case you feel a bit silly giving your phone the universal gesture for ‘stop’. But if you want to embrace the madness, Realme has all kinds of other gestures you can try, such as pinching your fingers to bring up the recent app list, or hovering over a spot to click. Which actually sounds less convenient than, y’know, tapping the screen.
As the video below shows, you can cycle through pictures with the kind of gesture an obnoxious diner would give a waiter to indicate that no more wine is required. A real-life thumbs-up while watching a YouTube video can give a virtual thumbs-up with a like, too. What a time to be alive.
In short, it all sounds a bit gimmicky (and somewhat reminiscent of the Google Pixel’s short-lived Soli integration) but, fortunately, the phone’s other specs appear solid enough. It’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered handset with a generous 6.78in curved 144Hz AMOLED display.
There’s a triple-camera array comprising of a 50MP Sony LYT-8808 sensor, supported by another 50MP Sony IMX890 3x telephoto lens and an 8MP ultra-wide snapper. There’s a beefy 5,400mAh battery powering things, and Realme says it can go from 0% to 50% charged in just 12 minutes with the bundled 100W fast charger.
Unfortunately, it’s China only for the time being, starting at 3,298 yuan (~NZ$755) for a model with 12GB RAM and 256GB of onboard storage.
