Background:  I'm buying my daughter a smartphone for Christmas - looking in the stores, almost all are running 2.x version of Android.  If I ask the staff which can be upgraded I get blank looks, a pause while they go in the back to speak to someone followed by "it's got version blah, blah".  I'm sure if I ring the mobile operators sales teams I'll get the same responses!

Reason:  Same daughter bought a iPod 4th gen early in the year and after finding recently it is not getting the iOS7 upgrade we have found that some of the Apps (including one we paid for) will no longer work and have physically removed themselves from the iPod.  I don't want this to happen to the phone in 6-12 months time.

So my question is; are there any phones under $150 that will run (smoothly) at least Jelly Bean - this will at least indicate whether there is some future scope in the phone.

I do not want a contract - this will be a pre-pay phone.

Thanks