Sony Xperia Ion - Sony's New Flagship

Sony is also launching is Xperia Ion in the Philippines. We are a bit surprised to see this in the Philippine market, since this was originally announced as an LTE device, compatible with US LTE networks. But apparently, a HSPA only version has also been released. Yugatech reports the suggested retail price will be Php29,900.

So, what is the Ion? Essentially it is a larger Sony Xperia S, with a larger 4.55-inch display. Instead of the 32 GB non-expandable internal storage found in the Xperia S, it comes with 16 GB of internal storage, expandable via MicroSD card. The Ion has a larger 1900 mAh battery than the 1750 mAh unit found in the Xperia S, which is good since it has a larger and presumably more power hungry display. It also comes with a faster HSDPA 21.1 Mbps radio, instead of the 14.4 Mbps radio on the Xperia S. In this sense it is more of a match to the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One X. 

But we are not too crazy about this offering. Like the Xperia S, the Ion has a Qualcomm S3 processor inside. For a 2012 flagship we would like to see a Qualcomm S4, Tegra 3 or Exynos Quad based system, all of which have more modern power saving features. 

Quick Specs:

• Operating system: Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich committed
• Display: 4.55-inch (1280 x 720 pixel resolution) 
• Processor: Dual-core 1.5GHz on a  Snapdragon MSM8260 chipset
• Graphics: Adreno 220 GPU
• RAM: 1GB
• Storage: 16B expandable via a MicroSD card
• Primary camera: 12-megapixel Exmor-R
• Secondary camera: 1.3-megapixel secondary
• Video: 1080p HD recording at 30fps
• 3G Data: HSDPA, 14.4 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.8 Mbps
• WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth: Yes, w/ A2DP
• HDMI out: Yes
• GPS: Yes
• Battery: Li-Ion 1900mAh
• MSRP: Php29,990

Finally, it still comes with Android 2.3 out of the box.

The iON is a nice phone which lacks those compelling features which scream "BUY ME!"