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.
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.
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.