Hands-On With a Sony Xperia Ion Smartphone

The Sony Xperia Ion smartphone, announced Monday, has some flattering drool-worthy specs. Not usually does it offshoot into ATT’s LTE 4G network, though it has a 4.6-inch display, HDMI-out with a TV launcher interface, and a super skinny design. Oh–and a 12-megapixel camera. Yep, we review that right–a 12-megapixel camera. And it is flattering damn good.

I got my hands on a Xperia Ion Monday night and we consider this competence be my favorite of a Xperia array of smartphones. The arrangement is ample though not oversized, while a interface feels poignant and smooth. ATT coverage was gloomy (meaning there was positively no signal) during a eventuality we attended, so we couldn’t exam LTE speeds.

But let’s speak about that camera. Sony Ericsson (which is now rebranded as Sony, in box we didn’t notice) has a clever tradition of producing phones with high peculiarity camera lenses. we usually took a few snapshots, though we was tender with how a Ion’s camera rubbed a dimly illuminated uncover floor.

The Xperia has a 1280-by-720-pixel display, that uses Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine. I’ll find out some-more about what accurately that means when we accommodate with Sony after on, though we suppose it uses a identical record to Sony’s Bravia line of TVs. Regardless, a arrangement looks good with splendid colors, pointy content and good observation angles.

The Ion is concordant with a wharf so we can perspective it on a incomparable display. It’s identical to a Motorola webtop knowledge (as seen on a Atrix 2, Droid Bionic and Droid Razr): You can send texts, play music, and perspective photos from a Ion on your TV. According to Sony, we can also control a phone from any TV remote.

The Xperia Ion doesn’t have a cost nor a recover date yet, though hopefully we’ll see it in a subsequent few months.

For some-more blogs, stories, photos, and video from a nation’s largest consumer wiring show, check out PCWorld’s finish coverage of CES 2012.