When the issue is obscure hardware support, I wouldn't count on it. As much as I like Linux.
Very true, Linux isn't perfect for driver support either but, why pay hundreds of dollars for an OS upgrade that doesn't do the job when you can potentially upgrade for free and get similar results? That way you can invest those $$$ saved into upgrading your phone maybe...
No OS is perfect for driver support and I will be the first to admit that one but, as an example, I have a usb wireless dongle with came with Windows XP drivers. Under XP it worked fine then when Vista came along it kept occasionally dropping the signal and when Win7 arrived it failed to connect even though it could detect the wireless access point - the issue was it could not get an IP address passed to it via DHCP but, Win7 kept telling me that my WPA2 password was incorrect - so helpful that message!
This same USB dongle has also been used with Ubuntu and other Linux distro's since I purchased it a few years ago and it has been faultless in its operation. The same is true of older network cards and a few peripherals too - they won't work after XP but with Linux they are sweet. Again, YMMV with hardware and driver support as I can't test everything
I suppose a good test is my 11 year old Pentium 3 733MHz with 128MB RAM PC - designed to work with Windows ME. How does it fair with a newer OS?
Windows 2000 -
Windows XP -
(only just 128MB wont run anti virus software etc...)
Windows Vista -
(8GB hard drive isn't big enough, 128MB not enough etc...)
Windows 7 -
(why did I even bother!!!!)
Linux -
(admittedly with a distro for older machines, this PC was a breeze. Sure, 128MB of memory isn't going to give much room to run stuff but as a basic web browsing and word processing PC its fine
)
FreeBSD -
(very much similar to Linux, installed and ran fine!
)
Following are a few links that might be of insight to people reading this,
Linux Hardware Support Better Than Windows 7 « The ERACC Web Log
Linux’s Hardware Support Better Than Windows? | Hacking for Christ
Linux-drivers.org - Linux Hardware Compatibility Lists & Linux Drivers