Android tablets are finally, kind of, getting a little exciting again. But I’m tired of the same stupid asterisk on all of them. Android tablets need to stop “cheaping” out on biometrics and using insecure, effectively pointless face unlock.
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For a very long time now, there’s been virtually no reason to even consider an Android tablet. Most options were either overpriced, underpowered, had some annoying dealbreaker, or just had to deal with the reality of being an Android tablet and the lack of optimized apps that has long come with that.
Recently, there’s been a resurgence for Android tablets. The OnePlus Pad has a lot of power for a low cost. The Pixel Tablet has a unique take on what a tablet should be in the home. TCL’s NXTPAPER tech can take even a cheap tablet and make it somewhat appealing. And at CES 2025, we saw a few more options launch. Lenovo has new flagship-tier tablets that rival the features and hardware of Samsung’s options, but at a lower price. TCL finally has a NXTPAPER tablet that seems to check all of the boxes. And the Legion Tab has revived the idea of a small Android tablet that actually has some horsepower.
But there’s an annoyingly common thread.
So many of these Android tablets act like insecure face unlock is somehow acceptable.
It’s not.
Biometrics have been the name of the game for smartphone security for a while now. It’s unthinkable for a smartphone to lack biometrics in 2025. For Android, fingerprint sensors have been the go-to. They’re reasonably secure, can work very reliably, and have a fairly low cost both in terms of the hardware cost as well as the room they take up in the device. Apple, on the other hand, leans on Face ID, which requires more advanced facial recognition tech that has a higher cost, especially in terms of how all of that hardware fits into the device. Outside of Google’s Pixel 4 and some devices from Honor, it’s been exceptionally uncommon to see “secure” face unlock on Android.
“Insecure” face unlock, however, is prevalent.
As a means of convenience, most Android devices support some form of face unlock using the front-facing camera. This is generally considered low-level and insecure. It’s often easy to fool and, as such, can only be used for bypassing the lock screen. Secure apps for banking, password management, and more will still require a full password.
This is fine when it’s an addition, but all too often Android manufacturers seem to be leveraging insecure face unlock as a shortcut to skip actual biometrics on tablets, and it needs to stop. Skipping biometrics on a $200 tablet is obviously acceptable, as it’s a real means of cost-cutting. However, on the $550 OnePlus Pad 2? The $500 Lenovo Legion Tab? There’s hardly any excuse at that point when $150~ smartphones at least have some form of secure biometrics.
Not only is there a security issue here, but it also makes an impact in terms of pure usability. By skipping any form of secure biometrics, these brands are effectively telling their customers to shop elsewhere if they want to use a password manager or a banking app without manually entering their password every single time. And that’s without even going into the fact that these cheap, insecure, camera-based systems often perform poorly, and are useless in low-light situations.
It may seem minor, but in day-to-day use, this is a big problem, and it needs to stop.
Would you still buy an Android tablet without secure biometrics?
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