A Soft Reset (or Forced Restart) differs from a Hard Reset (or Factory Restore) in that it doesn’t delete any essential data from the smartphone or tablet but you may lose some RAM or temporary data, for example any unsaved game progress or the page you were viewing on a website.

A Hard Reset on the other hand would only be required when you want to wipe all data from the device, starting it over.

1. Soft reset begins from unlocking your screen and golding down your power button.

2. Then after a short moment you should be seeing this menu on your screen.

3. Tap on the menu and choose option name Restart or Reboot.

4. And that's it! Your device will start restarting and will be ready to use very soon.

 

Soft resets are usually conducted in an attempt to fix  malfunctioning applications or because they're required for software installation.

Soft reset contrasts with hard reset, which removes all user data, settings and applications and returns a device to the same state it was in when it shipped from the factory.