The main difference between hardware and software is that hardware is a physical device something you can touch and see, unlike software cannot be touched or seen. Software is a set of instructions installed on the computer. Monitors, keyboards and printer are examples of computer hardware. While the operating system, Games and Internet browsers are examples of software.
In other words:. Hardware = computers or peripherals that are part of the computer. Software = computer applications that are loaded on a computer. While hardware and software are often associated only with computers, software currently runs on mobile devices such as mobile phones, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and others. Hardware and software work together as a team to provide functionality to a computer device. Hardware is generally the bottleneck when trying to speed data transfer, when a software program requires run faster. Therefore, modern hardware that has more capacity is able to run robust programs.
Hardware and Software have a symbiotic relationship, this means that without software hardware is very limited; and without hardware, software wouldn't be able to run at all. They need each other to fulfill their potential. Following important points regarding the relationship between hardware and software are brought out by this analogy: 1 2. Same hardware can be loaded with different software to make a computer perform different types of jobs just as different songs can be played using the same cassette player.