Encryption technology is becoming more common on smartphones - indeed, on the iPhone it's standard issue for mail, photos, calendars, contacts and text messages - but the extra privacy can come at the cost of speed for Android users, reports a German magazine. Android phones do not default to encryption, but users of the 4.3 operating system and above can activate it under Security in Settings.
Tests by the magazine, Computerbild, showed that activating encryption significantly slowed down the phone's speed. On top of that, it's very complicated, if not impossible, to remove encryption once it's been activated. Additionally, encryption is limited to the local drive; information on the phone's memory card remains uncoded.