Difference between hard reset and soft reset on mobile devices?
When your phone freezes, it could be annoying as the touchscreen could become unresponsive at times. In some cases, buttons do not register anything with the mobile phone. This could happen due to a variety of reasons and it is often very difficult for even techies to identify the exact reason behind it. Most technicians will advise you to do a soft or hard reset to negotiate the issue temporarily. Soft reset should be tried first but if the buttons do not register anything most users will be left to perform a hard reset. Let us see the difference between the two. A soft reset is a way of restarting the mobile devices in a very graceful way. This action will clear all data stored in RAM and any unsaved data on a hard drive. However, this activity does not change any saved data or application settings you have configured. Soft resets are performed to negotiate the sluggish performance of a mobile device or restart a malfunctioning application. A hard reset, on the other hand, is an attempt to bring the mobile device back to a state when it left the factory however the term “factory reset” could mean a higher level of hardware reset for some mobile devices companies/devices. In most cases “hard reset” and “factory reset” will mean the same thing. All saved data, applications, and settings are removed from the device to give the mobile device a fresh start. This activity is the last resort in the troubleshooting process of mobile devices. This activity is used when application-related or OS-related issues are frequently bothering the user. Be very careful and back up all that that you need before performing such activity on your mobile device. We are sharing the most common reset processes with Android and iOS mobile phones as examples here.
Android Reset
A soft reset is pretty easy for android phones which have a replaceable battery. Just remove the battery, place it back on, and power on the device to do a soft reset. If your phone has a battery that cannot be detached from your mobile device you would most likely have to use keys to be able to do that. Different phone manufacturers may have different key combinations to perform resets. However, in most cases, if you hold the power and volume down button for a few seconds it should do a soft reset of the phone. It may also be noted that some phones may not have a key-based reset option at all. In such cases, a user can check the documentation of their mobile phone. This will give them tips to perform a hard reset and restart the phone. Hard reset of Android phones also requires multiple combinations of Power, Home, and volume buttons. This depends on the model number and brand of the mobile phone. We recommend you check the documentation of your android phone for the specific process.
Apple iOS Reset
You can do a soft reset on an iOS mobile phone by pressing the power button, sliding it to power off, and pressing the power button again. This method will work in all cases where a touch screen is responsive. However, if the touchscreen has become unresponsive you can perform a hard reset.
TIP- Hold the power button along with the home button for 10 seconds until the Apple logo appears and then release both buttons. This will perform a hard reset on your iPhone and it would boot normally.
