How to find lost Android cell phone?

Mobility of mobile phone means you can use cell phone anywhere; but it also means you can lose your phone anywhere. One friend lost his Nexus one phone few days after he bought it. The market price is $529 for an unlocked Nexus One. What a loss! So how can we find a lost cell phone?

I found that there is a good Android application to help people find the lost cell phone. It is called Contact Manager. You search "Contact Manager" on Android market and install it. After the installation, start the app to set it up. From the contact list, you find a friend or relative. The contact (name, phone number, email, etc) of selected person will show up on the locked screen (right, the security pattern will be squeezed). If some nice guy find the phone, he can find the contact on the locked screen and return it to your contact. Do not select yourself since your phone will be in the hand of the guy who finds the phone. One drawback of Contact Manager app is that besides the security pattern squeeze, the Clock app screen also gets a little messed up.

Contact Manager app can help you find the lost cell phone if the guy who finds the phone is nice. How about if the guy is not nice and want to hold it? Your contact will never receive the call from the guy. Or how about if phone is lost on the shoulder of a road and no one has picked it up? Is there a way to let you proactively find your own cell phone. There is. Another Android app called Pintail can help. You can search "pintail" on Android market and install the app. After the installation, you select a PIN number. If you lose the phone, you can use a friend's phone to send a message locate PIN to your phone. After receiving the message, pintail will reply to a message with the phone location information (a Google map link). Then you can retrieve the phone there. If no one has picked up the phone, you can locate it and get it back. If someone else holds it, you can nicely ask them to return it to you. However, Pintail may have two problems. The first is the guy who finds the phone can easily change the PIN number of Pintail app. So your friend may not reach your lost phone if the guy changes the PIN number. The second is that if the phone is lost indoors, GPS signal is weak or not accurate (the error with 100 meters is normal.) So you still could not get the location of your lost phone.

How about when you locate the phone, someone holds the phone and does not want to return it? You need to call a policeman and show your proof. What proof can you have? IMSI and IMEI. You should write them down when you first get the phone.

To summarize, the first thing you need to do when you get a Nexus One or any Android cell phone, is

1) Write down IMSI and IMEI

2) Install Contact Manager

3) Install Pintail.

I heard there are some similar apps on other platforms like blackberry. But I never try it.