Life with a Fingerprint Reader

My Lenovo W510 has a fingerprint reader, and for the last month I’ve had it set up and have been using it to log into the machine on regular basis.

And I love it!

My old Toshiba had one with Vista, but I never bothered to set it up or use it. I didn’t completely trust Vista, and after enrolling my fingers, it didn’t seem to work automatically for signin. However the integration on the Lenovo is fantastic. It expects me to use my fingers to log in and that’s the default.

 

As you can see, it’s asking for me to swipe my finger, or click “ESC” for the default login screen. That is pretty cool, and it has been a nice time saver for me. I can walk up, swipe my finger, and then do something else while it logs me in. I can even swipe it when the screen saver has kicked in and the screen it locked. No hitting Enter and typing a password.

I don’t think this is giving me more security, but it’s more convenient for me. If you haven’t tried a fingerprint reader, I urge you to do so. I think it’s handy, and it’s fun. My kids think it’s great.