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upgrade from 3g to 3gs is it really worth it???

kevk666

kevk666

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 3, 2009
5
0
Newcastle Upon Tyne
Probably been posted a billion times but meh!!!
Hi im in a bit of a predicament ive had my loyal, trusty and maybe slow 3g for a just over a year i have been thinking about upgrading to the 3gs but that means buying myself out of my o2 contract which is about £140 then get the 3gs. The main reason for the change of mind is i have now noticed how slow the 3g is and how handy a decent camera would be. As i dont know anyone who has one and all the phone stores have the 3g demos i havent had the pleasure of the 3gs. any help would be appreciated :D
 
I've been contemplating the same thing, and I am going to upgrade this week. I believe the speed increase pushes the value scale over to not waiting for the next version.
 
Speed saves time by 2X as much. You can do things 2X as faster...My experience in the last day or so i had mines..amazing..

Speedy, quick, the battery is just amzing...6 1/2 hours of usage and 9 hours of standby at 10% battery left...camera is alright...video is alright....dont mind willing to pay that money, go for it..it saves for times by 2x as much..and get things done 2X as fast...thanks..thats my input.
 
I upgraded and I have to say you really notice the speed difference - everything is much snapper, from apps to everyday things such as email.

Its also good to have a camera with an auto-focus - the quality is great and actually makes it useful!

Only downside I have found is the battery life - it seems worse than the 3G.

Another thing to consider - selling your existing 3G on ebay/craigslist can completely pay for your 3GS. Thats what I did, listed it one morning for $350 and by the afternoon I had met a buyer and sold the 3G, and had a nice new 3GS in my hand.
 
ant131531 said:
Speed saves time by 2X as much. You can do things 2X as faster...My experience in the last day or so i had mines..amazing..

Speedy, quick, the battery is just amzing...6 1/2 hours of usage and 9 hours of standby at 10% battery left...camera is alright...video is alright....dont mind willing to pay that money, go for it..it saves for times by 2x as much..and get things done 2X as fast...thanks..thats my input.
Click to expand...

Not worth it. Stay with your 3G. Seriously this thing only gets a speed bump, larger storage, and some imaginary larger capacity battery which drains faster than my water drain at home and I've applied Drano to this drain.
On the other hand if you're one of the so called people that the Apple "Genius" claims to like the yellow screen then this could be for you. To me the screen sucks because it's substandard in quality. Even the cheapest computer monitor using some cheap TN panels can produce better whites than this phone. The screen on most 3GS is either pissed yellow or you get a gradient of white to yellow. Pass this POS 3GS up and wait for the next gen of iphones or until they fix the problem if you really insist on having one.
 
If you want an honest answer, I'll give it too you.
I upgraded on launch day from a 2G (Mine) and a 3G (Wife) to the 3GS.
I honestly think these phones needed another run through the QC dept before they released them.
They are fast, I'll give them that, but they are buggy as hell.
One day 3G data works, one day it doesn't (not an AT&T issue either as my work phone is a Nokia N75 on AT&T and 3G data worked flawlessly on the days my iPhone wouldn't do jack). Hard boot usually fixes it.

WiFi has been flaky at best. Drops and forgets connection all the time.

I know some of this is software and hopefully 3.1 will fix these issues, but I would hang tight and see if these issues are worked out with 3.1 before plopping down a wad of cash on one.

Love the phone in general, but wish it work "Just work" all the time, not some of the time.
 
What kind of question is that? OF COURSE IT IS, IT IS AMAZING!!! the speed is insane. the video recording it awesome. the auto focus is sooooo helpful. and I hate rocking throw-back phones
 
Yeah, that's what I thought until last weekend. I was showing Bump to a new iPhone user with a 3Gs. He downloaded it from the App Store, entered his info and that's when I saw that his iPhone was much faster than mine. I knew that my 3G was lagging after the 3.0 update, but this speed was insane. I'm not a jealous type, but now I don't know if I want to wait for the next iphone to come out or not.
 
It is very much worth it. To me it's night and day. The 3GS due to it's speed is an entire new experience. Go to an apple or att store and try one out and you'll be convinced.
 
Speed ? oh yeah... you open apps 2-5 secs before 3G..... Whatever :rolleyes:
Not worth it for me.... Video recording ? It's useless for me.
Wait for the next one. Or better! move to android ... :D
 
I can see why anybody wouldn't think it was worth it; however, I assure you that the speed makes a huge difference as far as user experience. I needed to do something on my mom's regular 3G and it was painfully slow compared to the my 3GS.
 
Nup.

2G -> 3G = Not much
2G -> 3GS = Big
3G -> 3GS = Not much
3G -> "4G" = Big
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (White, 32GB): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

Houls said:
yes
Click to expand...

Agreed. Not only is it noticeably faster, but it has twice as much RAM, meaning it can be jailbroken with a negligible performance hit. I had to buy out my 3G contract as well, but I don't regret it AT ALL. The 3GS is VASTLY superior to the 3G, not just on paper (specs) but in actual day-to-day use.
 
The iPhone 3g is good but is extremely slow and lags when typing on its keyboard. Going with the 3gs is a good idea but is a bit expensive, or you could wait until apple get off their ass's and do something about the 3g.:(
 
Did you actually use both the 3G and 3GS side by side?
I can tell within minutes the speed difference when I use my old 3G since I got used to my brand new 3GS.
And you're comparing the 3G with a supposedly 4G thats not even released and we dont even know if it will be next year unless AT&T has LTE up and running.
And you're quoting "Big" difference?
We're talking about phone performace not network data speed.

Chundles said:
Nup.

2G -> 3G = Not much
2G -> 3GS = Big
3G -> 3GS = Not much
3G -> "4G" = Big
Click to expand...
 
Truth be told I've had the upgrade option available to me since July. Unfortunately, I've struggled with the idea. I never really care to wait for new tech but video is the only thing I seem to care about and even then I wonder if it will be nothing more than a novelty for a while. Each day I tend to go back and forth. I figure I've waited a couple of months and come January if I still feel the same it will be me asking if I can wait 6 more months or do I just buy. By now I wonder if by not taking the option in July have I already botched up any early upgrade option next year.
 
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