Will iOS 4.1 make things faster for the iPhone 3G?

Anyone who’s using the iPhone 3G and updated its OS to any variant of the iOS 4 are probably regretting the move. There’s no denying that iOS 4 have made the iPhone 3G unbearably sluggish. With promises of bug fixes and improvements in response and speed for iPhone 3G users, is the new iOS 4.1 worth the download?

While we wait for iOS 4.1 to be available for download, the good people at AnandTech ran some tests comparing the iOS 4.1 with it’s predecessor the iOS 4.0.1 and the iOS 3.1.3.

So what did the test reveal? You can read about the full test here. But the gist of it is that, although the iOS 4.1 does offer up improvements in terms of speed and response over the 4.0.1, it appears that the new generation of iOS is beyond the limits of the aging iPhone 3G with it’s 412Mhz processor and 128MB RAM.

“The bottom line is that if you have an iPhone 3G, iOS 4.1 will make you hate how slow your phone is a little less. Apple deserves credit for keeping a device just over 2 years old fully updated and supported. On the other hand, it’s obvious that Apple could have saved some face had it optimized the initial iOS 4.0 ARMv6 kernel for the iPhone 3G a little more than it initially bothered to.”

Conclusion, if you’re planning to keep your iPhone 3G for a couple more years, you might want to consider downgrading to a 3.1.3 if you can.

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