Should I encrypt my Smartphone or just lock it for security

Should you encrypt your Android Smartphone device? Or is it adequate to just have the screen locked so others cannot have easy access?

Let me tell you, definitively, that I have no idea.

After looking into how to encrypt my data on my Motorla RAZR HD, I became frightened. It's irreversible. If you stop it, you could lose data. It will probably take over an hour and you cannot use your phone during the process.
Arghhhhh! Lemme outta here.

I have copies of files and videos and writing and graphics that I've created on my phone, but I back that up. I have dozens of apps, but they're backed up as well. Yes I do banking and bill paying on my phone, but I need my password to log into those accounts, so no real worries there. Are there?

Sure, if you found my phone and it didn't even have the screen locked, you could access all of my many Gmail accounts so you could see the thousands of ads, spam messages, boring business correspondence, and lots of photos that I don't even care if I ever see again. I do send myself an email every time I set up a new account with a username and password, but those are in my own little special code so that the actual username and password do not appear. I might list my password as Friend Dogbday. That tells me that the password is my childhood friend Melvin and the dog's birthday is October 1, making the password: melvin1001. Oh crap, now I'd better go change those.

I'm thinking that if someone found my unlocked phone and had full access to my cyber world, they wouldn't find anything of value. No monetary value. No entertainment value.

So, all of those recommending that encryption is a good idea suggest that you back up all of your important data prior to performing the encryption. Okay, so why don't I just do that and remove it from my phone. Problem solved.

Okay, so maybe that isn't the smartest thing.

By locking your phone you make it so that the person in possession of your phone cannot easily access your content. However, they can remove your SD card and see everything that you have stored on it. That's the first thing they will see when they access my SD card is a video of me tying up a scumbag and lecturing him about why he shouldn't have stolen my phone as I slowly beat him to death with a USB cord.

Take that slime-bucket!

To set a passcode lock on your RAZR, follow these steps:

1. From the RAZR HD home screen, select Settings.
2. Scroll down and select Security.
3. Next, select select Pin Lock.
4. Enter a four-digit passcode, or an alphanumeric passcode of any length.
5. Re-type your passcode to confirm.
6. Set Require Passcode to the desired time -- this will be the amount of idle time before your DROID RAZR HD will require you to enter the passcode.

For more great Smartphones and accessories, visit Amazon.com, BestBuy.com and VerizonWireless.com.