Best budget phone to leave alone

[Guest everett_psycho]

A little unusual request for a modders forum but please bear with me on this one.

My girlfriends in the market for a new phone, she had a HTC tattoo and is now struggling with my old HTC hero, she likes it but at almost 3 years old it's very slow. Her only stipulation is a 3.4 to 3.8 inch screen so it fits in her work bag and an affordable price (around the £200 sim free mark).

I've then got involved and suggested she go a bit further, my main concerns were that in 12 months the hardware isn't struggling with newer apps (i'm thinking a 1ghz processor or better). The key as always is the software, while i'm quite at home to root and flash roms on my O2X I'd rather just open the box and leave her phone to work as the manufacturer intended knowing that if i flash a rom and it isn't perfect I'll be the one having to fix it, so with that in mind manufacturer updates are also a factor i'm looking at (hopefully at least to ICS).

She's by no means a power user, the odd game (usually things like angry birds), it now needs to run twitter well and a half decent camera and decent music capability would be bonuses but beyond that it just needs to work at a decent pace and last a couple of years. I've suggested the samsung galaxy W, sony ericsson xperia ray or she wait for the ace 2 or sony xperia u but has anyone got any other suggestions that fit what shes after and tick as many of my boxes as possible?

Thanks alll