Hey, recently I was using a dell vostro 3700 laptop and it has this rectangular thing under the num keys on the right hand side of the keyboard faceplate. I've been poking and prodding at it for the better part of an hour now and I cant figure out what it does or is suppose to be if anything, but for some reason not knowing is driving me insane and googleing dell rectangles and variations of that isn't showing anything :p

I'm not a member of any tech forums or anything so I figured why not ask around here and see if anyone knows what it is or what it does or if its just some really weird and tacky design choice.

Finger print scanner?

Isn't it a digit finger scan thingy thing ?

its a finger scanner , you can use for login instead of typing password, they have been around for last 7 years, lenovo laptops usually have them

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/dell/vostro_3700_notebook/338793/

lol its part of cons ---fingerprint reader fickle in testing

Ahh that's probably what it was, completely forgot those where a thing :p

I've only ever used the sony print scanners between the mouse buttons

But it seems its not scanning the whole finger, but only a small rectangular section or am I wrong?

I didn't even know such a thing existed.

You move your finger over the scanner to scan the entire print.

I'm with you on that...

I thought Randalator was joking in the first reply, and got thoroughly confused when others confirmed such a thing does actually exist...

You learn something new every day.

The ones im used to on sony laptops are translucent, rounded and scan a lot more surface area of the finger, but I think what threw me with this is the fact that's its about a millimeter in width and doesn't show any clear indication that its suppose to be used for anything other than it looks very out of place, personally I cant stand anything created by dell so I'm probably also quite biased against it :p

They never used fingerprint scanners on Dr. Who?

Wasn't that the Dell MindControl™ module?

I know all "British" people are suppose to watch Dr Who... but come on! lol lol my thoughts exactly.

If your fingerprint should change (Say, a cut/scar, burn, flaking due to sunburn, etc) or it reads your fingerprint wrong, it would refuse you and lock you out.

Not only that mythbusters showed it isn't too hard to re-create a fingerprint and fool fingerprint scanners.

Always wanted to try that after watching that episode but never was able to get my hands on a basic scanner again.

They also have a backup password in the event something happens to your fingerprint or the scanner gets damaged