does turning off location reporting and location history under Google location reporting disable the ability to find if lost?
I don't know. That's why I asked the question mcfly
I see alot of ppl disabling it, so before I did so to try and improve the battery I wanted to have an understanding of what exactly it did.
Actually, I am pretty sure that turning off location reporting and history (which is different from turning off location) will not prevent you from locating using Android Device Manager or Motorola's equivalent, whichever one you are using. That setting just prevents Google's apps from giving you location based updates and alerts, etc.
However, if I were you, I'd just try it. Turn the setting off and then try to locate the phone. And let us know what happens...
Good article about this here on Android Central, by the way: Understanding Google's Android location tracking | Android Central
and from Google: https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3118687?hl=en