What should I upgrade my old 3.1.3 3G to?

[Soccy]

Hi all

I own a 3G (not 3Gs) on 3.13 and would like to upgrade to a version of 4.x to upgrade my apps that no longer support 3.x. I had once upgraded to 4.0 and my phone was so miserably slow I couldn't stand it. Also, the battery drained so incredibly quick with 4.0. Now that there are several 4.x versions out there, I'm wondering what you experts find works best on the old iPhone 3G.

Also, if someone can point me to a guide to do the upgrade and subsequent jailbreak.

Thanks for your help.

Device + Firmware: iPhone 3G 3.1.3 (7E18) 05.12.01
Operating System: Windows Vista

 

[Intell]

4.2.1, I found it to be a vast improvement over 4.0 on my iPod Touch 2G and I was surprised at how fast it ran.

 

[Applejuiced]

I'd stay with 3.1.3
It will be the same miserably slow as you noticed before.
Unless you're using a 3GS I wouldnt go past 3.1.3 with a 3G.

 

[Soccy]

thanks..but

has anyone actually tried it? I'm tempted because most of my purchased apps are 4.x compatible only now and I'm missing out on the new features...most important to me is my navigation software.

 

[tersono]

I'd stay with 3.1.3
It will be the same miserably slow as you noticed before.
Unless you're using a 3GS I wouldnt go past 3.1.3 with a 3G.

Wrong. Apple fixed the slowness of early builds of iOS4 on the 3G. Later builds are a LOT faster.

The OP should go for the latest available - 4.2.1 (which is what I'm using on my 3G right now).

 

[Soccy]

how do I upgrade it without losing my info?

I want to try upgrading. can you point me to a guide? I want to make sure I keep my contacts and other settings. thanks

 

[Reach9]

Hi all

I own a 3G (not 3Gs) on 3.13 and would like to upgrade to a version of 4.x to upgrade my apps that no longer support 3.x. I had once upgraded to 4.0 and my phone was so miserably slow I couldn't stand it. Also, the battery drained so incredibly quick with 4.0. Now that there are several 4.x versions out there, I'm wondering what you experts find works best on the old iPhone 3G.

Also, if someone can point me to a guide to do the upgrade and subsequent jailbreak.

Thanks for your help.

Device + Firmware: iPhone 3G 3.1.3 (7E18) 05.12.01
Operating System: Windows Vista

Hey buddy, i think we're on a similar boat here. I'm also using my iPhone 3G on iOS 3.1.3, which i got on the first day it came out back in '08. I've upgraded to iOS 4.2.1, and it's still very slow compared to iOS 3.1.3.
If these apps are completely necessary then might as well buy an iPhone 4, because it takes forever for the apps to load and work on iOS 4.2.1. Trust me, i switched and switched back from iOS 4.2.1 about 3 times since it was released. I've decided to stick with iOS 3.1.3, i think it's the most ideal firmware for the iPhone 3G. Apple really dropped the ball there, iOS 4 should have never been available for iPhone 3G users.

I too have apps which don't support iOS 3 anymore, and for now i'm just waiting for iPhone 5 and iOS 5 so i can make a clean upgrade.

Regardless, you can always try iOS 4.2.1, and downgrade by using Tinyumbrella to get you out of DFU mode. (there are videos on youtube with, from easy searches). And you'll be back at iOS 3.1.3, just make sure you back all your important files up if you decide to upgrade.

 

[Applejuiced]

Wrong. Apple fixed the slowness of early builds of iOS4 on the 3G. Later builds are a LOT faster.

The OP should go for the latest available - 4.2.1 (which is what I'm using on my 3G right now).

Wrong, it's slower than snails on 4.2.1
But OP give it a shot. You will see.
You can always downgrade back to 3.1.3 with an iPhone 3G.

 

[iKoopa]

Do NOT upgrade. It isn't worth it.
I have an iPod Touch running iOS 4.2.1 (which is at least 100 megahertz faster than an iPhone 3G), and it's HORRIBLE.
For something that gets no benefits at all, save maybe persistent wifi, and a few apps to match the minimum required software, it's too sluw and clunky.
I did not have my SSH saved, so I have no way of going back down.
You can always test it out, and go back down since you have the 3G, but you aren't going to like it. Every single app takes at least two seconds longer to load.
Launch animations are horrible, unless you have 5 apps per page.
You CAN hacktivate Wallpaper and Multitasking though.

With Wallpapers, it becomes much more slow.
With Multitasking, you won't even be able to hold about three regular apps in memory without it being kicked out. Let's say Real Racing, Facebook, and an IM app like AIM. You can shuffle through AIM and Facebook and keep the state, but once you launch Real Racing, that's it. You'd be lucky if you don't crash the phone. So if I'm getting horrible results, an iPhone 3G would have even more horrible results because the processor is clocked even slower.
128 megabytes of RAM isn't enough for real life usage on an iPhone.

Just stay on 3.1.3. At least you'll actually be able to use the phone.

 

[kopesetic]

I have a 3G running 4.2.1 that I installed last night. It is adequate. Not as fast as 3.1.3 but usable.
Previously the phone was running 4.1? for about 6 months. It progressively got slower, and slower the longer I used it.

I have found that performing a "restore to factory settings" in iTunes to install the firmware but not "restore from a backup" makes things speedier. It seems that the "upgrade" and "restore from a backup" just brings some baggage that slow the phone down.

There are some downsides:
- need to rebuild your contacts, notes, bookmarks, etc from outside sources
- need to re import all media
- loose your MMS message history
- some other things

I follow most of the advice from this thread to keep the performance adequate
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1151196/

My feeling is that this is good enough to hold you over to the next version but still get you some functionality you need from the 4.0 apps. You will want those apps anyway when you get a new phone.

In the past, I have also jailbroke the phone and installed GC. This got me my GC username I wanted and got me on a few high score lists. But that really slows some apps down and dragged the phone performance down. I would not recommended it for a full time use phone. Only as an experiment.

My $0.02.

Kevin