Which Android device was the first with a fingerprint scanner?

The Motorola Atrix 4G was the first Android smartphone with a fingerprint scanner.

Announced in 2011, the Atrix 4G placed its fingerprint sensor in the power button on the back edge of the phone. Users swiped a registered finger across the sensor to unlock the handset, making biometric authentication part of an Android phone before the feature became common across the industry.

The Atrix was notable beyond biometrics. It used Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core processor, had 1 GB of RAM, and supported Motorola’s unusual Lapdock accessory, which turned the phone into a laptop-style workstation. Its fingerprint reader was an early experiment rather than the seamless standard later users came to expect.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One Max are frequent mix-ups because both arrived in 2013–2014 with fingerprint hardware and received far more attention. Apple’s iPhone 5s also helped popularize fingerprint unlocking in 2013, but it was not an Android device. The Atrix therefore holds the Android-first distinction, even though its scanner design and software support were limited by modern standards.