first of all, cell phones never use HDD (hard disk drive) so it goes to show that you know nothing.
2nd, why would any large, respectable company put end-of-life softwares, such as wp7, on new hardware??
3rd, single-core is ridiculous. so is 256 MB of RAM. (does that even meet the min. req. of wp8???)
besides, you stated that android phones <$100 is crappy. below that point, any smartphone is crappy. i'd rather use a good feature phone rather than a crappy smartphone.
OH my god, I used the term HDD instead of whatever I should use. Terrible!
Anyway, I read an article a long time ago about 7.8 being critical in reviving WP.