Motorola had it right, the sensor was right where my index fingers rested on the back. Unfortunately this isn't "premium" nor "hi-tech" enough to sell phones.
Seriously. I'm tired of blinding myself at night when trying to sleepily check my phone. The sensor on the back of my old pixel could also be used to pull down the notification shade which I can't easily reach with one hand, now, since the screen is so large.
I forgot about the gesture to pull down the notification bar. The was far superior. I could reach in to my pocket and have the phone unlocked before I even see the screen
There is a one-handed mode gesture that you can enable. It allows you to swipe straight down on the gesture bar to pull the entire top of the screen down.
I'm using a pixel 8 with graphene. If I try to use that gesture while browsing lemmy with the Sync app, for example, it just scrolls the feed back towards the top.
I only explain bc I'm hoping I'm using it incorrectly.
I had a phone with one on the back and currently have one with it on the screen. Personally I had absolutely no issues with its functionality in the screen and do prefer it over the back. I like that I can unlock my phone without having to pick it up off the desk or while its still in the mount on my vehicle dash.
Seems to work perfectly fine to me but maybe it's a quality issues with the brand of phones. Mine is a OnePlus and it's almost 4 years old now, still works fine and never had any issues.