Would an iPhone 4 be too slow at this point?

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Getting an Iphone 4 today is like getting a Nexus One today. Huge nope.

except it'll run smoother for the most part.

The RAM likely makes a huge difference. It's likely the reason that iPod touch model doesn't get iOS 7 support, considering it has the same CPU as the iPhone 4.

The RAM is a huge difference maker. It's like a 256mb versus 512mb RAM device on Android. My overclocked Droid at 1.1ghz would never feel speedy enough. It was always struggling with RAM. Granted the iPod does much better with 256mb RAM, its still a limitation. Just moving to a Nexus S with 512mb RAM made my experience on Android 100x better.

 

[Via]

My iphone 4 is still perfectly servicable. There isn't anything I need it to do that it doesn't still do well, and I have no intention of upgrading any time soon.

I actually like the fact it's 3g; the battery seems to last forever and it charges very quickly.

 

[Eug]

$300 http://www.ebay.com/itm/in-box-Appl...dition-Read-/271278101286?hash=item3f296f5326

That 4S price is low, probably because it's in "fair condition" but I've been looking around and contrary to popular prediction the iPhone 5, and 4S as well, have indeed dropped like a rock in the last 2 weeks. It seems that customers don't care so much that the 5C has a plastic shell, as pricing for a used 5 is like what I'd expect for a used 5C... which makes sense since Apple slashed the pricing of the 5 to match the 5C pricing.

Well, the unlocked pricing isn't the greatest, but carrier-locked pricing is decent. 4S in the $350 range or so, and 5 in the $450-500 range (or more for ones with more storage). Local new pricing is $450 for the 4S 8 GB, and $599 for the 5 16 GB.

In fact, it's pretty tempting for me too to get a used 5, but I'll stick to my plan to splurge on the unlocked 5S.

 

[openwheel]

My iphone 4 is still perfectly servicable. There isn't anything I need it to do that it doesn't still do well, and I have no intention of upgrading any time soon.

I actually like the fact it's 3g; the battery seems to last forever and it charges very quickly.

The 5 has better battery life and has LTE.

 

[Via]

The 5 has better battery life and has LTE.

I obviously haven't owned a 5, but I've read 4G uses much more battery than 3G.

Even on heavy use days my 4 is rarely down below 50%. I've survived multiple-day trips without taking my adapter with me.

The 4 also charges very fast. My commute is 45 minutes, and is enough to fully charge the phone.

 

[jpeyton]

As far as dropping more $200-250 on a phone. My wife is on her 4th in 6 months. Not going to happen.

Do you enjoy buying your wife 8 phones/year or would you rather buy accidental damage coverage once?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I obviously haven't owned a 5, but I've read 4G uses much more battery than 3G.

Even on heavy use days my 4 is rarely down below 50%. I've survived multiple-day trips without taking my adapter with me.

The 4 also charges very fast. My commute is 45 minutes, and is enough to fully charge the phone.

1) 4G radio uses more battery than 3G radio which uses more battery than 2G radio, but the way 4G communications works typically helps to reduce overall power consumption. First the latencies and bandwidths are much better. If its 5x as fast, your download ends in 1/5th the time. So even if 4G uses double the power, you're using it for only 1/5th the time. Therefore you come out ahead. 3G HSPA requires time to wake up from idle which can take a few seconds sometimes before you get data connectivity. That alone takes up a huge amount of battery compared to LTE.

2) I don't doubt this. I've seen iPhone 4s last quite a while, but in general iPhones last quite a while on battery to begin with. It obviously also depends on how much you use your phone. Use it screen on for 2 hours and I doubt you'll be at 50% at the end of day 1.

3) Yes. It charges pretty quickly with its small battery. 45 minutes at a quick charge is reasonable.

 

[Red Storm]

My sister is currently using my wife's old iPhone 4 as a glorified iPod Touch. It is slow, annoyingly so.

 

[tfinch2]

Do you enjoy buying your wife 8 phones/year or would you rather buy accidental damage coverage once?

She's on a bit of a bad streak. The phones she has gone through aren't exactly expensive, so it is not as bad as it sounds. LG Optimus to HTC One V to Samsung Galaxy Ring to my old HTC One V backup. Probably about $300 total.

 

[JimKiler]

She's on a bit of a bad streak. The phones she has gone through aren't exactly expensive, so it is not as bad as it sounds. LG Optimus to HTC One V to Samsung Galaxy Ring to my old HTC One V backup. Probably about $300 total.

So the consensus is to get her a Blackberry.

 

[MrX8503]

I obviously haven't owned a 5, but I've read 4G uses much more battery than 3G.

Even on heavy use days my 4 is rarely down below 50%. I've survived multiple-day trips without taking my adapter with me.

The 4 also charges very fast. My commute is 45 minutes, and is enough to fully charge the phone.

On the 5, its the other way around. You'll get better battery life on LTE than 3G.

 

[Via]

My sister is currently using my wife's old iPhone 4 as a glorified iPod Touch. It is slow, annoyingly so.

I don't really have a dog in this fight; everyone should get whatever phone they want.

But I have to ask because I'm curious: what exactly is so annoyingly slow? I listen to music, surf the net, occasionally watch Netflix or TV, play some games, use aps and nothing seems that slow to me. It's noticeably faster than the Droid X I had before it.

I even downloaded Infinity Blade when it was free, and it plays fine with a stutter every now and then. But my ipad 4 has an occasional stutter on IB game as well.

 

[Eug]

Surfing the net and occasional OS lags are the main reasons why I gave my iPhone 4 to my wife. Ignoring LTE for the moment, it just renders slowly in Safari. But as mentioned, even in iOS 6, it had occasional OS lags of a few seconds. The lags are still infrequent in iOS 7, but happen a bit more often than in iOS 6. A few seconds here and there aren't going to kill me, but it's still damn annoying.

For the little I've tried the 5, those lags are gone. Safari rendering is also much, much faster.

However, my wife is like you. She thinks the iPhone 4 is fine in iOS 6, and worlds better than the crappy feature phone she used to have. She also thinks the iPhone 4 is fine in iOS 7 too. Her only complaint is having to learn all the UI changes in iOS 7, and the colour scheme. She particularly doesn't like the white background for text messages and to be honest, I'm not a big fan of that either. However, she has no complaints about the speed.

P.S. With regards to listening to music. One thing I noticed was that if I was playing music in the background, the iPhone 4 in iOS 6 would lag more than it usually did. I don't know for the iPhone 5, but I'm told for the iPhone 5 it's not a significant issue, which makes sense since it's much faster clocked and is dual-core. This was not a major issue in iOS 5 on the iPhone 4 BTW, IIRC. It became more noticeable in iOS 6. I have not tried that in iOS 7.

 

[JAG87]

I don't really have a dog in this fight; everyone should get whatever phone they want.

But I have to ask because I'm curious: what exactly is so annoyingly slow? I listen to music, surf the net, occasionally watch Netflix or TV, play some games, use aps and nothing seems that slow to me. It's noticeably faster than the Droid X I had before it.

I even downloaded Infinity Blade when it was free, and it plays fine with a stutter every now and then. But my ipad 4 has an occasional stutter on IB game as well.

The connectivity and the UI is slow. Like scrolling through an iTunes Match library filled with album art, or scrolling through a heavy webpage in safari, so on and so forth. I can't even fathom scrolling through my picture library in the SkyDrive app in a device without LTE or at least DC-HSPA. It would take forever to load every photo.

So yea, the iPhone 4 is slow. If all you do is call, text and email, then it's perfectly fine.

 

[Eug]

The connectivity and the UI is slow. Like scrolling through an iTunes Match library filled with album art, or scrolling through a heavy webpage in safari, so on and so forth. I can't even fathom scrolling through my picture library in the SkyDrive app in a device without LTE or at least DC-HSPA. It would take forever to load every photo.

So yea, the iPhone 4 is slow. If all you do is call, text and email, then it's perfectly fine.

Strangely enough, scrolling through my wife's 5 GB of photos and videos in the Photos app's Collections and year views in OS 7 is actually pretty fast. Minimal stuttering. I'm very impressed and very surprised. Is it indexing using tiny thumbnails for all the pix or something like that to speed it up? Below is what these views look like on the iPhone 5.

Also, the new tab/windows view in iOS 7's Safari is pretty smooth.

Whatever they've done to optimize iOS 7 on the iPhone 4, they've done it well. I'm very pleasantly surprised.

 

[Shephard]

Interesting responses...

I would say yes an iPhone 4 is perfectly fine, but not at the $200 price. That's old tech and of course Apple products are overpriced no matter their age.

I bought an iPhone 4 recently for $60 bucks. It smokes my DUAL CORE garbage LG phone.

Unless your gaming on a phone or want a bigger screen for movies I see no reason to blow loads of money...

I'd also like to add the iPhone 4 has incredible battery life. Seems like the iPhone 5 is terrible, but the 4 is great.

I left it on standby for 19 days, watched a few YouTube clips on it, and it had around 22% left.

My Android phone will last maybe 1.5 days without touching it.

 

[gmaster456]

Interesting responses...

I would say yes an iPhone 4 is perfectly fine, but not at the $200 price. That's old tech and of course Apple products are overpriced no matter their age.

I bought an iPhone 4 recently for $60 bucks. It smokes my DUAL CORE garbage LG phone.

Unless your gaming on a phone or want a bigger screen for movies I see no reason to blow loads of money...

I'd also like to add the iPhone 4 has incredible battery life. Seems like the iPhone 5 is terrible, but the 4 is great.

I left it on standby for 19 days, watched a few YouTube clips on it, and it had around 22% left.

My Android phone will last maybe 1.5 days without touching it.

What's the LG phone you have?

 

[MrX8503]

A coworker of mine loaded iOS7 on his iPhone 4. It's quite a bit speedier than dev version. You can tell that the OS is slower on the 4, but still pretty good for the casual user. Pretty good for a 3yr old phone.

 

[Oyeve]

Strangely enough, scrolling through my wife's 5 GB of photos and videos in the Photos app's Collections and year views in OS 7 is actually pretty fast. Minimal stuttering. I'm very impressed and very surprised. Is it indexing using tiny thumbnails for all the pix or something like that to speed it up? Below is what these views look like on the iPhone 5.

Also, the new tab/windows view in iOS 7's Safari is pretty smooth.

Whatever they've done to optimize iOS 7 on the iPhone 4, they've done it well. I'm very pleasantly surprised.

Yo, what's in that Lower East Side pic? That's my HOOD!

 

[Shephard]

What's the LG phone you have?

LG Thrill with LTE. Worst phone of all time!

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

A coworker of mine loaded iOS7 on his iPhone 4. It's quite a bit speedier than dev version. You can tell that the OS is slower on the 4, but still pretty good for the casual user. Pretty good for a 3yr old phone.

Agreed. Plus, it feels far better than a similarly equipped Galaxy S1 running in 2013.

 

[Shephard]

Just updated to iOS 7 and it's still faster than my Android phone. Things open about 0.5-1 second slower, but not even remotely close to the painful experience on my LG.

So yes I would say this phone is still very capable today.

 

[Eug]

Just updated to iOS 7 and it's still faster than my Android phone. Things open about 0.5-1 second slower, but not even remotely close to the painful experience on my LG.

So yes I would say this phone is still very capable today.

Yes, agreed. Some things will open slower (but not always), but it should be noted that once open it's usually fast switching between apps (unless you've used up all the memory I guess).

This is definitely not the iOS 4 on iPhone 3G disaster by any stretch. iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G is horrible in comparison. Slow as molasses at the North Pole for some stuff.

Yo, what's in that Lower East Side pic? That's my HOOD!

No idea. It's a stock Apple PR photo.

 

[Eug]

My demo video: iOS 7 on our iPhone 4 (720p)

 

[tfinch2]

Updated OP.