what is the difference between soft reboot and turning the phone physically off/on?

[musikat]

When people say they rebooted their phone to "fix" potential issues (particularly after the update) is that just turning it off then on? or does that mean volume keys and power key soft boot? does the latter do anything particular to the phone in terms of apps and settings? or is more like something in between powering it down and factory reset?

Sorry, I am a bit confused and not sure whether it will help to do it or not.

 

[marctronixx]

whew, this is going to open up a lot of worms in the can...
if you turn the phone off, use the volume keys, or any other SOFTWARE style reset, they all will perform the same. use which ever suits you.

for stubborn stains (sorry could not resist ) you may do the battery pull. this will remove ALL power from the unit and if there are any issues with hardware or what have you, this is a more aggressive way to try and remedy a simple problem you may be having...

 

[musikat]

Thanks. I don't understand why people would want to push THREE buttons where one will do, but okay. I will try the battery pull method if needed.

 

[edlex]

Ok so it's the hard reset that returns it to factory fresh state?

 

[tardmobile]

yup

 

[dakidobf]

When you turn the phone off then power on holding the Volume down button, you will get a menu that includes "Clear Storage." Selecting that option with factory reset(hard reset) your Evo, erasing all apps and settings.

Outside of third party apps, there is no way to "soft reset" the Evo other than turning it of then back on, that I know of anyway.