Sony announced several new phones at CES last week, destined for various parts of the world. North America is getting the Xperia ion by way of AT&T. The ion is similar to the Xperia S which has been named as the 2012 flagship product. There are a few differences between the ion and S though, so I will talk about the S separately. Here are the ion specs:
- Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich soon
- 4.55″ 16 million colour TFT display, with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels
- 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM8260 dual-core processor
- Adreno 220 GPU
- 1GB RAM
- 16GB eMMC internal memory
- microSD up to 32GB
- Supports UMTS/HSPA 850/1900/2100 and GSM /EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 bands
- LTE 700MHz and 1700MHz and UMTS HSPA+ 850MHz, 1900MHz and 2100Mhz
- Mobile BRAVIA Engine
- NFC enabled
- ANT+ enabled
- 12MP camera with Sony Exmor R CMOS sensor for low light, supports 1080p video
- 1.3 MP front-facing camera, supports 720p video
- Transfer Content through DLNA, HDMI and BRAVIA Sync
- PlayStation Certified
Where to start, here? This looks like the rumored Xperia duo we had been hearing about over the last few months. At 4.55″, this is a very large phone. A dual-core processor brings Sony into the modern phone era, though its competitors are already releasing their next-generation phones. Sony has some catching up to do, and this phone looks like it is off to a good start. Of note, the image sports the Sony logo, rather than Sony Ericsson. There is a note about the name pending regulatory approval, but Sony is planning to release this phone sans-Ericsson.
At 12MP, the camera will be hard to beat. Sony is advertising that it can go from standby to ready to shoot in less than 2 seconds. I am looking forward to seeing this in action. The Xperia X10 was a little slow on that front. Sony is gunning for Apple with this feature. Apple had spent a lot of time playing up the speedy camera feature. Sony’s video camera finally supports 1080p, and throws in 720p for the front-facing camera. I would have liked to see more than 1.5MP on the front-facing camera, but it should be more than sufficient for self portraits.
As with most Sony devices coming out these days, the phone is PlayStation Certified. There is already a pretty respectable list of Xperia Play games available, so if the ion can tap into this, it will be off to a good start. The Tablet S is still waiting for additional games, so it will be interesting to see whether the Xperia ion takes after the phones or tablets for PlayStation support.
Sony is offering a substantial 16GB of internal phone storage, and the microSD slot can support an additional 32GB. Whether you are using this phone for gaming or photography, you should be well-set in the memory department. With 48GB available, you should be able to do quite a bit of both.
Learning a valuable lesson from the Tablet S, Sony is including HDMI support in addition to DLNA. Not all users have DLNA devices, so Sony will be able to reach more customers who do have HDMI-enabled devices.
The Xperia ion is NFC enabled, which means it will support Sony’s new NFC tags, and can support Android Ice Cream Sandwich’s DLNA features.
Sony’s Xperia ion will be available at AT&T in the second quarter of this year, with some rumors hinting about the end of March. There is no word on pricing, or a solid release date.
