[UnoriginalGuy]

The author of this article doesn't know what the term "bricking" means. If you delete key Windows files you will not "brick" a PC.

"Bricking" is the process of turning a physical piece of hardware into a device as useful as a "brick" (thus its name). It was coined to describe what happens when you try and flash a phone and it is unrecoverably damaged.

[motoford]

This article was written by the same guy who last week described Steve Wozniak as "infamous" in a different article, then later went back and changed it.

[gpjt]

Looks like he's fixed this one too. He says that he did it in one of the comments, though.

[krisoft]

I thought "Bricking" is a relative term. For someone with an compatible in circuit debugger/programer that phone would be probably salvageable. For someone else a corrupted operation system could be indistinguishable from the "bricked" state, because of lack of experience, or skills to fix the problem.

[UnoriginalGuy]

Realistically even if you had the equipment, those phones are beyond economical repair given the amount of time you would have to invest in fixing them.

Even if you remove key Windows files sometimes Windows can recover its self using the backup copies located in %windir%\winsxs\Backup (and several other places depending on system configuration).

But generally bricking refers to the state of disrepair where something has to be thrown in the bin because it cannot be used in the future. The closest PC equivalents would be either corrupting the BIOS/UEFI or over-heating a component like the graphics card.

[enraged_camel]

Bricking an electronic device is the equivalent of totaling a car. It could be repaired, but repairing would cost more than the device's total value.

[nvmc]

In my experience bricking refers to the rendering of a device inoperable (and irreparable) by the means available to a savvy user. Usually by method of failed firmware flash. Generally you're looking at soldering some wires up to whatever chip and reflashing it manually.

[DominikR]

True, I've "bricked" my Android phone a few times by flashing a new OS version, and always recovered it with ADB.

[sin7]

That's a 'soft brick'. It's a strange term, but necessary to differentiate from phones that will never turn on again.

It's difficult to brick a phone these days.

[DominikR]

I know, the point of my comment was that it's almost as hard to brick a phone as it is bricking a PC. You've got to kill the bootloader to achieve this, which rarely happens, even when you flash a corrupt OS.