hakubak

I've had my 5455 for 13 months.

I haven't used the fingerprint reader for the last 12 of those.

How long did your biometric honeymoon last before you disabled the feature?

I'd trade the reader for a better (e.g. bigger and less prone to sticking) control pad.

buckyg

I've never used it much, either on the 5455, which my wife's using now, or the 5555 I'm using.

Oh, I played around with it a bit. My big fingers took a bit to get it to read them right.

I agree, would prefer a bigger control pad to make it better for gaming. It works okay for me, but like I said, big fingers...

Yeah, I know HP would say the 5xxx series are geared toward enterprise use...

lanwarrior

I never used it after the 1st week owning the 5450. Reason: the damn thing is not very accurate! I've to try 4-5 times before it'll work.

The problem I guess is because the fingerprint reader is based on thermal technology, so temperature condition can severly affects the overall operations.

delfuhd

Yeah, a big decision for me as to whether to get a 5000 series was if the biometrics was actually worth it. It's an awesome and very secure feature to have, most defintely, but I always imagined "what if you burnt yourself on your stove?" or something totally random like that. I dunno, just seemed like a not-the-perfect-solution-and-i-can't-see-myself-spending-so-much-because-of-that-reason situation...

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Pants.

madbart

I use mine still to this day and have a solid reason for doing so.
When i had my old 37xx i used to get up every day and try and check my appointments for the day only to find that my battery was flat.

As it turned out the wife used to wake up in the middle of the night and play games on my ipaq until the battery was flat.

The first night i got my 5450 is an evening i will never forget.......i was sound asleep and felt someone grabbing my hand and runningit over something quite cool to the touch.

Low and behold it was my wife trying to rub my finger over the little reader to try and get into my ipaq!

Problem solved no more flat batteries!
As i footnote i bought her a Gameboy Advanced..

JmE

Off topic:

Sounds like my wife might be related to yours. Thank goodness for Gameboy.

-JmE-

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http://www.ipaqhq.com

All that AND a bag of chips!

lanwarrior

Madbart,

That is one hell of a funny story!! Ha..ha..

And your wife didn't tell you she was the one who played the game at night?

ctmagnus

Quote:

Originally posted by delfuhd I always imagined "what if you burnt yourself on your stove?" or something totally random like that.

I fear the same thing.

ale_ers

I used it all the time until I upgraded to WM03. There is a bug in the new rom that will ask you to swipe every time you turn it on (like 10 min.). I hope they fix it soon because I miss it. It worked great for me and kept things secure.

For those of you worried about cuts or burns, you can enroll more than one finger and add a pin or password. My set up was to enroll the same finger 2X (improves recognition) and set it for OR pin. That way if there was something wrong w/ my finger (a cut or too cold or it was too hard to get to like when it is mounted in the car) I could enter a pin instead.

MPSmith

Sorry to hear about that bug. I was looking forward to using it. I keep a lot of sensitive information in it and that would be a cool way to secure it.

Surely HP will fix that.

micael

Used it the first couple of days but realised that i don't need it to used a finger print scanner all the time you know so.

__________________
My new and improved MYPDA. Come and have a look drinks on me

JmE

Wouldn't using a PIN defeat the purpose of having the security of fingerprint recogntion?

When I had the 5455, I thought you could enroll more than one finger for such reasons. Or am I incorrect?

-JmE-

mtnbikeeod

The fingerprint reader is the best security capability I have seen out there. I have mutliple fingers enrolled in case of problems (i.e. cuts, abrasions, etc.) If you press the button above the reader as you begin the scan, you will hardly ever have an incorrect scan and it works 99% of the time.