Ireview a lot of laptops here at PCWorld, and I’m always surprised when I unbox one without biometric hardware.

Fingerprint readers and infrared (IR) cameras for facial recognition are both great—and some laptops even have both! But then you have those that skip the biometric hardware entirely, which is a huge loss these days. I would never give it up if I had the choice.

It’s so important that I won’t buy a laptop if it doesn’t have it, and I go out of my way to add it to my desktop PCs. Why? Because Windows 11 has a security feature called Windows Hello that lets me log in with my face or a fingerprint scan. It’s more secure and more convenient. In 2025, you shouldn’t accept any laptop that lacks Windows Hello support.

You should avoid typing PINs in public

Most laptops—unfortuna

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