You can look at it that way but I look at it this way. The average consumer probably wont care if his/her phone is dual/quad core as long as the phone is fast, smooth and delivers a great experience.
Didn't MS sign a deal with Qualcomm so whatever their flagship chip is going to be is probably what WP is going to run on. Say if MS doesn't reach quad core status by the end of this year dual core might actually provide them with some sort of advantage over its iOS and Android quadcore counterparts.
How is Dual Core going to provide them with some sort of advantage? iOS runs find on a single core processor, as seen with the iPhone 4 and its A4 processor (which is related to the Hummingbird in 1st Gen Galaxy S devices). Good Android Phones fly on Dual Core devices. Do you somehow forsee some ridiculous performance degradation in Android and iOS moving from Dual to Quad Core? Apple's next iPhone may very well be Quad Core with LTE...
Price is a big advantage. I am going to assume the flagship Android and iOS phones will retail at 199$ if WP flagship product can be sold at 149$ I bet WP is more appealing to the average user. The average user will probably have a mindset of "ehh I dont need quad core etc I am going to go with what works at a lower cost" or "ehh I dont think I want to spend 200$ on a iPhone when I can get a Lumia for 149$" As long as the WP are priced competitively against the Quad core super phones WP will do great!
You're looking at it wrong.
High end WP7 devices retail at $200 on contract - promotions notwithstanding. That's the same price as a 16 GB iPhone 4S and roughly the same as a Galaxy S II, which is the best selling Android phone on every carrier that carries it. Low end phones are more Analogous to Last-Gen Android devices (like the G2X, Sensation) and the iPhone 4, which are either [on the brink of] EOL or at $99. The iPhone 3GS runs iOS5 for $0.01 on contract.
AT&T still has some 16 and 32GB iPhone 4 devices left, available for $149/249 on contract.
You don't buy a phone simply because it costs $50 cheaper. You consider all the variables. Hardware, Camera Quality, Music/Video Store, Platform it runs, App Store, etc. Even at $50 cheaper, the Lumia is an extremely hard sell vs the iPhone. Apple simply has a much better ecosystem and the device is built in a way that warrants the price. iPhones can also sell very high a year after purchase, used... The same cannot be said for any Windows Phone.
Low end phones. If Android and iOS keep going up the charts in hardware the low-end market will slowly open up to MS. If WP can provide that awesome low-end experience they will eat up alot of marketshare. Most likely the iPhone 4 will struggle running iPhone 5 apps and samething goes for low-end Androids.
You're wrong. Android high end devices always drop down to mid-range pricing when they are being phased out (upgrades have been released), and Android manufacturers release a ton of mid-range devices.
Additionally, Apple always drops down the earlier generation iPhones to Mid-Range pricing when they release a new model. That market is just as crowded as the high end due to both this and the fact that Android manufacturers release a ton of high end devices. That means they are always phasing out previous high end models and the best way to get rid of inventory is to drop their prices down.
The way that WP is optimized low end handsets user experience is the same as its high end counterparts and I can see that attracting alot of people.
That's both a positive and a negative. It means that someone with a Gen 1 device has little incentive to upgrade or even recommend the newer devices - which cost as much as any other device - because there is little benefit in doing so.
It also means WP7 devices look cheap compared to high end iOS and Android devices. Perception matters.
So going quadcore might be awesome for power hungry users but dont count out lower spec dual cores and single cores to still compete. As of right now no phones beat the Samsung Focus Flash and Lumia 710 as budget phones.
Not every iOS and Android device is Dual Core, and not every Android and iOS device will be quad core. And that's a bold statement, especially when you can get much better Android, iOS, or even WP7 devices (at least in terms of Camera, Screen, or Storage Capacity) and get a lot more value out of your data plan and a contract term.
The reason why a lot of people ignore low end devices is because they are bad value for people who purchase phones on contracts. If you're gonna go that route, you're better off just buying the phone cheap off contract and just going pre-paid. In that case, you will pay more than you would for an on-contract 32 (and maybe even 64) GB iPhone 4S and a contract Galaxy S II, Amaze 4G, or similar device.
It does not help that relatively decent devices like the Atrix 4G are practically free on contract, either, on some carriers. But that goes back to my statement about previous high end models obtaining mid-range pricing, with twice the specs of those low end WP7 devices...
On top of that, you also have to convince users to get WP7 in lieu of all of their friends using other devices with services locked to that platform (GTalk + Video Chat, FaceTime, iMessage, BBM) or Apps which are not yet available on WP7. It's really hard to sell, especially to the younger crowd - which [here] seem to have quite a bit of influence on what the older crowd considers because now parents are looking to their kids for advice and input on many things technological.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram