I've been offered my nieces Iphone 3 for £30, it's pretty old now and well used although it's been in a case most of it's life. The battery only holds a charge for about a day of use but I plan to replace it. Do these phones have a history of longevity?, I'm not bothered about speed as it's just supposed to be a reasonable upgrade for my wife who presently uses a god awful cheapo nokia. I just don't want to spend £30 on something that may conk out in 3 months. I know this is kind of asking how long is a piece of string but need some sort of idea if these phone wear well or not.
In terms of build quality they are just fine; it's the battery that you should worry about (QED). The problem is processor speed. It will run dandy on iOS4, but it already starts to slow significantly on iOS5. Forget about running the latest fancy-schmancy iOS7. Most apps should still be OK on it (games not so) but keep in mind that most popular apps by now won't run on anything older than iOS6. Apple's app store since recently started storing legacy versions of many apps, but I don't know if they go back as far as iOS4.
Not sure what it's running. I don't think she will be to bothered about apps, email, browser (maybe) and general phone use that's better than her crappy Nokia is what's important really.
You can downgrade iOS manually (of course Apple doesn't grand you this possibility, but there is 3rd party applications for the purpose).
I had a go with one a couple of weeks ago and the only thing it can go without crashing or taking way too long is texting and phoning, so you may as well buy a new feature phone that will do the same job but likely with more battery life and speed.
If she doesn't need smartphone functionality, why are you getting her a smartphone? Seems you're buying a phone by ease rather than sense, snapping at the first available thing that comes your way. According to you she needs something that can make phone calls and text (or so her situation with the Nokia would suggest), so maybe look into a device that can do this with a good battery life - you know, more than the day and a half a modern smartphone with a brand new battery will get her. Look in local classified listings for people getting rid of their older candybar or flip style phones and snag a good one - likely for less than you would have paid for that naff iPhone, because even the luxury of old is the garbage of today. This is exactly what I just did for a PAYG phone (well, got it out of storage rather than buy it second hand, but same idea), and I couldn't be happier with it's two-week battery life and indestructible pocket-sized nature. Or, you know, spend the money on the phone, then the replacement battery, then the contract, for a piece of cheap consumable hardware that might last her a while and be well too powerful and feature rich for all that she requires even though you could have gotten a modern counterpart for free (or cheap) on contract which would still have many of the same issues but more so. Call me a Luddite, but I'd rather basic functionality take priority over Angry Birds.
Definitely a +1 for not running it on anything higher than iOS4. I still have a PAYG 3GS for visiting Canadian relatives to use which is running iOS 5 and it's faster than my own PAYG spare iP4 running iOS6.
I have my 3GS for 2 years now, it was the phone of one of my buddies before (I received it in exchange for a pair winter boots lolll Canadians) I use it everyday and it still working great.
i think its too outdated, i mean you really wont be able to use it fluently due to the lack of speed. especially if you compare it with any of the newer devices. If you already have a phone, id say dont buy it. just a waste of £30
And the 3GS is a lot faster than the 3G. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eSrdgTHhK0 I still have my 3G and a 3GS phones, but TBH it would drive me insane to use them as smartphones. They are just too limited (Old OS versions) low performance (Slow CPU, 256MB RAM) and tired. But then again I'm now rocking a 5S which is a beast
The 3G is fine as a phone. It is slow in comparison to newer models (shock horror) but, if you're going to replace the battery, you can jailbreak the phone and overclock the processor to the same speed as the 3GS. The overclocked CPU does go through the battery charge much faster than stock, but it's only like leaving bluetooth switched on all day.