As a long term user of Windows Phone 7, the decision to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 was made all the more difficult by Microsoft’s revelation that they wouldn’t be completely abandoning the older release.

Instead, the older devices would be receiving an upgrade to what is called Windows Phone 7.8, an update that begins rolling out in December 2012 and which offers a bunch of improvements to the existing Windows Phone 7.5 release of the slick and stylish OS.

While the first generation devices (for example the HTC devices such as the HD7 and the Nokia devices including the Lumia 800) won’t be given the same feature upgrades as the new Windows Phone 8, there are still quite a few improvements that will be introduced…