I review 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 2026, you shouldn’t accept any laptop that lacks Windows Hello support. You should avoid typing PINs in public Most laptops—unfortunately, not all laptops—now have built-in biometric hardware. You have two options here: a fingerprint reader (usually somewhere on the keyboard) or an IR camera that’s integrated alongside the normal webcam. Some laptops have both. Chris Hoffman / Foundry With biometrics, you don’t need to type your PIN or password whenever you sit down in front of your laptop. That’s good news because typing your PIN or password in public is a security risk. If someone is “shoulder surfing” and watching what you type, they could pick up on it—and PINs are particularly easy to steal. I can’t stress the security angle enough. Your PIN is the key to device encryption on your PC. With that PIN, a thief or attacker could bypass your PC’s encryption and gain access to all your data. It’s better to skip PIN entry altogether and use biometrics instead. Biometric hardware isn’t just for signing in Windows Hello is best known for