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albertfallickwa

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 27, 2014
543
40
Just curious if anyone here still uses the 1st three generations of iPhones. My dad gave me his iPhone 3GS and I still really like it. Perhaps even better than my iPhone 6.
 

shorestyle

macrumors member
Oct 27, 2014
61
60
My grandmother needed a cheap reliable device so I gave her my 3GS. Restored it to 6.1.6 and popped in a cricket plan (40$ plan) Works perfectly fine.
 

cmichaelb

macrumors 68020
Aug 6, 2008
2,280
739
Italy
The shape and the thickness which makes me think that it's not fragile and going to bend. Even the size makes it a wonderfully portable phone.

Interesting.

My 3GS is the only iPhone I owned that broke in it's own. The back casing split right down the middle. The whole bend thing is soooo overblown, just like antenna gate.

I never felt my 4S, 5S or 6 will bend and they haven't. I never felt any of them were fragile.
 
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AaronM5670

macrumors 6502a
Apr 19, 2012
603
163
Norwich, UK
A friend of mine still uses an iPhone 3G on iOS 4 as an everyday device. Unsurprisingly runs incredibly slowly I am informed!
 

Savor

Suspended
Jun 18, 2010
3,742
918
I gave my iPhone 3G to my Stepdaughter and couldn't stand using th 3Gs for even a day. I owned two 2G's and sold them years ago as the og consistently froze up and crashed with its anemic 128 MB RAM.

I currently use a black iPhone 5 as a third stringer. The furthest I can go back is probably 5 because it was the first to get 1 GB RAM same as the current 6/6 Plus. The 3.5" screen of the 4/4s is just too small to type or browse for me. The 5 runs pretty smoothly on iOS 8.1.2. But I will jailbreak it out of boredom and then sell it off within a month as I have no use for it. I am an Android/Windows PC guy.

The first three generations are just relics with single core sub-800 MHz single core speeds and 128/256 MB RAM. You are either stuck between iOS3 to 6 and you won't be able to download the latest apps. Keeping them is more of a novelty to me.
 

albertfallickwa

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 27, 2014
543
40
The iPhone 3G is still a fun smartphone to use. Actually because it is so inexpensive used, I love it as a knock around phone around town.
 

Savor

Suspended
Jun 18, 2010
3,742
918
The iPhone 3G is still a fun smartphone to use. Actually because it is so inexpensive used, I love it as a knock around phone around town.
If you are content with first generation hardware with a 3G radio and nothing beyond iOS4. And it doesn't move as fast on iOS4 as it did on iPhone OS 2.x.x. Two generations later is when you start noticing the lag. The most timeless iPhone to me is 4s. I ended up with the 4 on launch day but the dual core 4s endured better. The 4 started lagging by iOS6-7 and GPU was weak at 3D games.

The $50 Nokia Lumia 635 or Moto G (2013) might serve as better devices as backups with quad core processors, 4x-8x more RAM, and triple the CPU speed as an iPhone 3G.
 

pooleman

Suspended
Jan 11, 2012
1,769
425
Eastern CT
Just curious if anyone here still uses the 1st three generations of iPhones. My dad gave me his iPhone 3GS and I still really like it. Perhaps even better than my iPhone 6.

When the iPhone 6 Plus was announced I sold my iPhone 5 and had to deactivate my original iPhone (still in pristine condition) until my 6+ was ordered and delivered. That was the longest most painful 3 weeks of my life. The original iPhone was awesome when it first came out but compared to the iPhone 5 I sold it was a piece of junk.

Thank God my iPhone 6+ came only a week after the launch date.
 

Unami

macrumors 65816
Jul 27, 2010
1,351
1,556
Austria
a friend of mine still uses a 3g he bought used a few years ago. he has turned off cellular data and 3g and mostly uses it for phone calls and texts and gets incredible battery life out of it (4 days+).
 
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Ron20

macrumors member
Apr 4, 2015
47
0
I still have an iPhone 2G that I use as an alarm clock. Does that count? :rolleyes:

my 3g is used just for that reason (i got a docking radio), back when i had a usb port in my car (my new truck doesnt have one) i used that for music.. and the thing for its age gets great batt life of course i never use it.

and man is it slow... even my old 3gs was same way, and jailborke=cant be used well
my 4s was decent all around.
 

JPIndustrie

macrumors 6502a
Mar 12, 2008
909
213
Queens, NY
Its so funny looking back on those phones. I remember all the days spent searching for each one upon their release, finally getting one, getting the case etc...

All the times I've had, and with each one along the way. hahah :apple:
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,420
12,431
Do you leave it plugged in all the time?
Nope. It's in airplane mode and battery lasts surprisingly long given its age. I only need to charge it less than once a week.

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Its so funny looking back on those phones. I remember all the days spent searching for each one upon their release, finally getting one, getting the case etc...
I wake up insanely early (or just don't go to sleep) to pre-order so I've never actually had that problem. Don't really care if I don't get it on day 1 (or even week 1 for that matter). :p
 

andyp350

macrumors 6502a
Aug 14, 2011
807
460
I know a few older people who use a 3GS, presumably a hand me down, as far as I'm aware they use it to take calls and send the odd SMS. I cant imagine it has many other uses for your typical smart phone user nowadays without being rather frustrating.
 

TrueBlou

macrumors 601
Sep 16, 2014
4,531
3,619
Scotland
Not as my phone, they're too slow and outdated for me. But that's not to say they don't have use left in them.

I use an old 3GS as a internet connected camera to monitor my 3D printers when I'm out. Very handy.
 
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