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Beware of used Pixels with a replaced screen (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I very recently bought a used Pixel 6 with a replacement screen, not thinking too much of it. I even made sure that the screen looked good during pickup.

One thing I missed though, was that apparently my Pixel doesn't have a fingerprint sensor anymore. I did some research, apparently it's quite easy to break the fingerprint sensor (or some places simply just don't include a sensor in the repair?) when replacing the screen.

Today I also noticed (through Show refresh rate in developer options) that my screen will only do 60 Hz as well.

Also I have stupidly high battery drain, I'm not 100% if that's related though.

Long story short, learn from my mistakes and either don't buy a used phone with a replacement screen or carefully test all functionalities associated with the screen, mainly high refresh rate and the fingerprint sensor.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Am I the only one who despises biometrics?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For anything I don't control, like door locks at work, I'm with you.

For a device controlled by me, the tradeoff for convenience is so much better.

If it's properly implemented, extracting biometric features is hard, so stolen fingerprints are less of a concern.

It allows me to use a long password, which in android also serves as an encryption key for the filesystem, while allowing me to unlock my phone without entering that password every time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

The fear of forced bio entry is front of mind for me, but I do acknowledge that if someone is restraining me and breaking into my device, I have much bigger problems.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I'm fine with fingerprint, actually prefer it to most other forms of authentication, but hate facial recognition and my new R Celly phone's method just seems unsanitary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I really like the convenience and also added security. For example, while using my half broken Pixel, I noticed two things:

Unlocking with two hands and a pin is pretty fast, but with one hand it takes forever compared to fingerprint.
For "secure" apps (Aegis, Bitwarden, Banking apps), it's quite nice to use my fingerprint instead of master passwords. The odds of someone managing to get in there by spoofing my fingerprint or something are practically 0, whereas when I would just use the same pin as my phone it would be stupidly insecure. Even when using a separate 6 character pin, it's still very easy for bystanders to watch and see the pin (and it's slower and less convenient).

Also in terms of general security I'm perfectly fine with it, as my actual fingerprint never leaves the phone (AFAIK not even the sensor but don't quote me on that) and I can just purposefully scan the wrong finger or a dirty finger 5 times and it's locked.

That is also the reason why I absolutely hate face unlock, I've quite often just taken a random friends phone, held it up to their face for 1 second, and I was in. That stuff is scary.