[kbenson]

Common use of the term predates Android phones by at least a decade, so I'm going to resist this new "soft-brick" designation as both misleading and unuseful.

Having your phone go into a boot loop or corrupting your MBR has historically not been considered "bricked", but just having a corrupted install. It's generally not that hard to fix or find someone to fix, which is why it wouldn't be considered bricked.

Getting a device to a state where it's unrecoverable, or at least requires custom equipment and lots of knowledge about it to fix (and I'm not talking USB key fob and how to reset an MBR, or even a serial port connection, I'm talking JTAG connectors).

People familiar with putting experimental linux hobbyist distros on devices with no support, such as the Sharp Zaurus or wireless routers circa 2000 know what this means.

[zeep]

JTAG connector is not that much different from USB at at stage... you just have to remove the case to access it or solder a connector to existing pins? I would call that hard brick... and if JTAG doesn't work, then it might be considered broken by some and need electronic part(s) replaced

[kbenson]

Are you comparing plugging in a USB fob to soldering a connector to pins, and that's what you're referring to as "not that much different"?

I would consider any time you have to solder a custom connector onto the device to fix it as being bricked. The equipment, knowledge and capability to do that are very rare.

[zeep]

but it's not physically broken... it's just a different way of connecting to it... so yes I would call that hard bricked, but not broken, since you don't need to replace components

[kbenson]

> since you don't need to replace components

I think the fact that you have to manually add a component for connection by soldering, even if you can remove it later, makes that point somewhat moot.

Let's look at it from another point of view. The combination of needed skills is rare, and if you had to pay someone to do this, it would likely cost to fix it is more than the cost of a new device (since they would have to research how to fix and apply that knowledge. If there was an existing market you could easily tap it may be cheaper). If the cost to fix is more than the cost to replace, it's a brick.

[zeep]

I get your point, but if soldering is the only problem, just get a spring loaded solderless connector for JTAG pads? then it is about the same as USB for many more people?

[kbenson]

I just think you'll have to go quite a bit farther to convince me that using a USB key fob in an existing USB port, which I can probably find and buy at a 7-11 down the street, is the same as acquiring a spring loaded JTAG pad or soldering a JTAG connection in place to a device I have opened to expose the circuity, and then configuring the software required to interface with it.

In one case, I plug a USB stick into a working computer, which virtually everyone has already done at some point before, run a utility included in Windows[1], and maybe download and drag some files around to copy them. In the other I do a whole bunch of stuff that isn't common to any neophyte or even most advanced computer users.

1: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+make+a+bootable+usb