Back in October 2008 I took the plunge and purchased a 16GB Black iPhone 3G. I had some extra money and was getting tired of my AT&T Tilt and its many quirks that Windows Mobile 6.0 gave it. I was quite content with the features and portability of the iPhone 3G until a friend of mine was getting rid of his White 16GB 3GS for a very reasonable price so I figured why not? I couldn’t see paying full price for a little more speed and a compass or would I?

I primarily use my iPhone for making phone calls, texting, tweeting, watching videos, streaming music, appointments, and the occasional game or two. I do have the phone jailbroken so that I can tether, use themes, IRealSMS, and this nice app called SBSettings.

So I got the 3GS home and promptly did a backup of my 3G to my laptop and then restored the 3GS with my 3G backup. After the backup finished I jailbroke the 3GS and installed my jailbroken apps. The first thing that I noticed is the speed. With a slightly faster CPU and twice the amount of ram the 3GS has a clear gain over the 3G. Everything from loading my contact list to browsing the web on MobileSafari was blazing fast. My tethering bandwidth was even faster on the 3GS. I used to average about 200KB/s to 250KB/s at my house with the 3G. With the 3GS I was now pushing 400KB/s to 450KB/s. There was also a noticable speed boost in packet transfer. I was able to finally play Left 4 Dead on my laptop using my iPhone for the internet connection.

Aside from the speed boost there is also the compass. Now one might first think “big deal a compass”. The default compass app isn’t anything special but the developers of AppStore apps have done some really cool things with the compass and the accelerometer. For example the “UrbanSpoon” application has a cool feature called “Scope” where you can point the phone in a direction and you see where food places are on the screen through your camera. You can then tap on one to select it.

All in all the 3GS is a welcome improvement over the 3G and if you are getting one under contract it is a much better deal than the 3G was. I paid $300 for my 16GB 3G in October 2008. Now you can get the 16GB 3GS for a measly $200 under contract with AT&T. Just a note the cell service was the same between the 3G and 3GS. I still get a dropped call every now and then but it’s because how the iPhone handles going from a 3G cell tower to Edge towers. Can you fix that soon Apple? Please?

Is it worth the upgrade from the 3G to the 3GS? If you can get it for under $300 I would say yes. If its more than that and you want to save some coin then just keep on using your 3G.