Originally Posted by
joshwex90
My Galaxy S3 requires the phone to be unlocked to turn it off - can't do it from the unlock screen. As for taking out the battery, part of the reason to shut mobile connections would be to reprogram the phone. Having it off may turn off traceability, but it wouldn't help a thief to reprogram. And turning it back on, the phone would be locked again and traceable again
Also, if you encrypt your phone (and a lot of us should), pulling the battery (or powering off) flushes out the decryption key.