Is there a reason why I need to remove my phone's battery after it crashes before I can turn it back on?

Question

I have a Galaxy Nexus running on 4.0.1. I've noticed that when it crashes it usually requires a battery pull to get it working again.

I was wondering if the pulling of the battery to get the phone to work again is a "feature" of Android. The phone will otherwise stay off after a crash indefinitely until you pull the battery out and put it back in. Is there a specific reason why it cannot be turned on again without first removing the battery? Is there some benefit to this?

Answer 1

That's not entirely true. When your device gets crashed, Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds. The device will be rebooted. It works atleast on my Galaxy S. You should try it, too.

If this method is not working, you shouldn't blame Android for that. This is the way computers work. When Kernel runs out of memory, the device is crashed. Your screen is on or off, it doesn't matter.. The data is intact in memory (mainly RAM). The RAM is designed such that it can hold data as long as it has power supply. It's not like hard drive, DVDs etc which could hold data without power supply. When you remove battery, the RAM looses its data. So, when you start the device after that, it's like fresh start. Kernel is loaded again in RAM to handle everything as usual.

(If you have problems understanding any terms or process in last paragraph, go try Google. Such things are off-topic here.)

Answer 2

You can't remove the battery on the RAZR or MAXX, so the magical key sequence to power off is holding the volume down and the power key for 10 seconds.