iphone3GS

It does everything you want it to do and it looks a bit better than the newer iclones!

 

I wouldn't recommend it. I used to have iPhone 3G and then decided to get another 3G as it was cheaper than upgrade to 3GS. By the time I was eligible for another upgrade the phone was unbearably slow. Even text messaging was a pain. If you get one you will have to run very old OS. I think 4 or 4S would be far better choice - much faster, which will make it a bit more future proof and the screen is a whole class better.

 

As Iceman said. Skip the 3 and opt for the 4 or 4s. 4s gives you Siri and voice directions on the Sat Nav. Great piece of kit

 

Do you need a smartphone? If yes what do you need it for? Browsing? Apps? Etc etc?

battery life will be nothing like an old Nokia etc as it will effectively be a powerful miniature computer not just a phone... You have a few options, Apple, Android, BlackBerry or Windows mobile... Android being the largest number of users plus differing devices.

 

I'm going to go for an iPhone 4 when I change in a couple of months. I've been very dissatisfied with the HTC wildfire (android), its just impossibly slow after its been in use a few months.

 

My 3gs is using the latest OS (6.1), but no Siri, although not sure how useful that is. I'd go for the 4 or 4s personally

 

You can run the latest OS on a 3Gs and they're not slow, unless you block them up with lots of stuff. Voice direction on GPS comes with the TomTom app which is better than using Maps or Google Maps which hammer your downloads, TomTom is on your device.
I use a 4S for work and a 3Gs for personal, not a huge amount between them unless you use the camera and Siri a lot, Siri is a toy.

 

Fuck knows what you lot are on about, but I hope everyone gets the technology that they want and need (maybe need is a stretch).

I would like....

a door bell that rings when someone pushes it ( JW etc. excepted).
a fridge that keeps things cold.
a camera I can take 'photos with.
a GPS that is so accurate, I will not get lost on the High Peaks.
a telephone that does not allow me to set it to make any noise that indicates that I am a complete twat.
a quiet life, no chance!

 

I have a 4. There is clearly no point upgrading it for a 4S, or for a 5 come to that.

As a bit of kit, it's massively useful. Keeps your diary up to date, emails, texts, facetimes, googles. You can even use it as a telephone. Handles different languages well (handy for me, as am always using at least 2).

I don't have that many apps, no games. But the few I do have are splendid, like the guitar app that has a tuner, metronome and all the chords known to man, or the bird identification app that has all the bird calls on it in addition to the pix and blurb. Like an incredibly good multimedia bird book that takes up no room.

Don't bother with a 3GS, though. You'll be stuck with the OS you've got sooner rather than later (typically Apple).

 

I've gone from Apple to Android, I now have a Samsung galaxy 3 and will never be going back to Apple. I can do so much more with my Samsung and I'm not stuck with the restrictive Apple OIS. Apps are just as easy to load with Google as Apple. However I love my ipod for music!

 

One of the biggest issues for people who think their iPhone is slow is that they don't "kill" the apps! Like any computer, the more stuff running in the background, the slower it will be! For anyone who doesn't know how to do this, double click the home button, the list of running apps will appear at the bottom of the screen, press and hold on one of these until a red and white circle appears ( if you get a black and white cross, you will delete the app if you then press, so start again) press the red and white circle and you will effectively shut down that app, thereby speeding up your iPhone! Simples!

 

How much internet do you need when you're out and about? I have a 3G I got 2nd hand about a year ago for £70. OK its slow but it does all I need while I'm away from home. Email, Ebay, a bit of twitter etc. The ipod is great for a bit of music in hotels or at work, The battery needs charging daily for about an hour if used a lot. The camera's only 2mgp and flashless but does a good enough job for me.

 

Not actually the case, if the memory in use by these apps is required, the OS shuts them down for you. I used to do this religiously until i read an article which explained how it works & showed me the benchmarks. Live & learn!

 

I never bother closing anything on the 4. Battery normally lasts a couple of days or more before I need to charge it up again. But it is true to say that I'm not constantly playing Angry Birds on it.

Haven't noticed any difference yet with iOS 6.

 

iOS doesn't multi-task like say BlackBerry so switching apps put them on hold, as has been said they are still in memory but not doing anything so closing them will free up memory which in turn "may" speed up the device if you're running low on available RAM.

You can switch off a lot of the native functionality in the apps to increase battery life also, location services, notifications etc from memory when I worked in the industry for a certain smartphone manufacturer the biggest drain on a modern smartphone was the geo and screen rotations, processing power to redraw the screen from horizontal to vertical and back was huge.