Windows Phone 7.8 - the last CE based system for the consumer

They are a distant 3rd but now the cheap budget WP's are out they are selling in large numbers and I don't think will be long till the 3rd is not so distant outselling iPhone in India for example.

Yea those lower spec Windows Phones are quite interesting. So far only Nokia makes lower end WP*, as they are the only phone maker that uses WP exclusively for all their smart phones. But frankly with only 256MB RAM (minimum requirement I think) it was not enough - it couldn't even run Angry Birds for crying out loud. I think it gave a bad name to both WP7 and Nokia. Last I heard it was not going to be upgraded to 7.8, instead it only came with 7.5.

On WP8 though, the story is a bit happier. The lower end Nokia WP8 phones have the same internal spec as the flagships - only cheaper by a low res screen, and less sophisticated casings. Cheaper Android phones on the other hand will not get flagship specs. Which means they will be sluggish and undesirable. If WP didn't beat Android at the top end, they just might beat them at the lower end, which could hurt just as much.

Meanwhile Blackberry seem to be making only two phones - Z10 to go with the trend, and Q10 for traditional customers. They may have abandoned the lower end market, however unwillingly.

* I heard Huawei will be making cheap WP8 phones too...

Well, and the lower end WP8 devices only have 512 mb RAM, as opposed to 1gb on flagships.