I still use a Windows Phone (and I purchased a few spares as I love it so much!)

Smooth experience, no clutter, no distraction - it just works.

Agreed. A single-core windows phone 7 was waaaay more stable than my android flagship. Superb phones and this is coming from a Linux fan boy.

i could never find a $100 windows phone to buy. I always had to get it 'free' with a 2 year service contract. The 'retail' price without a service contract was still, IIRC, in the multiple hundreds ($499? $599?). Not spending that on what would have been a secondary/dev device to play with. FWIW, I never saw too many on ebay or craigslist at the time either.