I remember it was originally used for smartphones, which makes sense because of their size is comparable to an actual brick.

It predates smartphones by at least a decade, maybe several decades. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/488450/etymology...

When computers were bigger heavier and not the size of cell phones, you could say "door stopped".

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/18959/doorstop

But you can't keep a door opened with a broken cell phone, so they had to invent a new mobile-friendly term "bricked".

For a mainframe or minicomputer, you could say "monolithed" or "bouldered".