Android Device Manager Reviewed: With its Speed and Accuracy, Your Android Phone Could Be Hard to Lose, But Only If It Works

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It was launched a week ago and now you can see it in action. The Android Device Manager could be the answer to your absent-minded phone desertions.

If you’re the kind to misplace your phone around the house or carelessly leave it behind at bars, shops or in cabs, the Device Manager will – without judgement – locate your Android device through a browser (click the link to take you there) that displays the device location. What’s more, it will even place a call to your phone so you find it by listening for the ringtone (just pray it’s not on silent mode).

Not only that, if you lose your Android phone or tablet, the Android Device Manager will ‘Lock and Erase’ remotely i.e. it will erase all data, change the screen unlock password and lock the screen.

To allow this, send a notification to your device from the browser, following which Google Play Services will activate this feature.

We did a quick review of the service and found:

First Try: 

It was super accurate. When we went to the Device Manager link on the browser, we were asked to share the device location on Google Maps. On doing so, Google turned up the exact address location of the phone in under 10 seconds, except the house number, of course, even though it claims the location is accurate to 18 metres. That with the device GPS turned off. That was mighty impressive.

We got a call in less than 5 seconds: On clicking the ring option, the phone rang in less than 5 seconds, which is good time to locate your phone if you happen to have just misplaced it.

Subsequent Tries: 

But on the second, third and fourth try, the browser was unable to locate the phone repeatedly.

So, if you’re lucky and the Android Device Manager happens to smell your phone out and you do it well in time, you could save your smartphone. But is it something you can count on? The jury’s still out on that.