Cell phone theft (and theft insurance) costs Americans about $2.5 billion a year. The last thing you would want is for that new smartphone of yours to be taken away from you by would-be thieves. If you’re worried about losing your major investment, the Verizon and US Cellular Galaxy S5 may ease your stress.
Samsung has partnered with both wireless carriers to pre-installed with its Find My Mobile and Reactivation Lock anti-theft features into the Galaxy S5. Find My Mobile is designed to track down your phone. You can remotely track, lock, and call your handset with the program. It will also let you know if a different SIM card is inserted into your handset. Meanwhile, Reactivation Lock requires you to input your password, even when you reset the handset.
The Google Play Store already contains several anti-theft applications, like Cerberus and Google’s own Android Device Manager, but it’s a welcome change to see devices arrive with them pre-installed. In addition, existing Samsung customers can download Find My Mobile for their respective handsets.
Recently, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman released a joint statement about smartphone kill switches, saying that “more work needs to be done to ensure that these solutions come standard on every device, but these companies have done the right thing by responding to our call for action.”
The Samsung Galaxy S5 will be released in the U.S. on April 11.
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