Sony Xperia Ion coming to Canada

AT&T won’t be the only carrier in North America to get the Sony Xperia Ion, with some Canadian carrier(s) readying to join the party. The rumor is that an LTE-enabled model will be released in the country, hinting us that any of the three major operators could get it, including Rogers, Bell and Telus. Then again, always highly informed MobileSyrup thinks Rogers Wireless will be the first (and only?) one to offer the powerful device.

Just how powerful, you ask? Sony Xperia Ion may not be as cool as the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S III, but it’s still a high-end smartphone, rocking a dual-core processor, 4.6-inch 720p HD screen, 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, front-facing one with 720p video recording capability, HDMI, DLNA and a solid 1900 mAh battery. AT&T will start selling Sony’s baby on June 24th though at that time it will still run Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Perhaps Canadian version will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich out of box, perhaps not. Waiting and seeing is all we can do at this stage…

Sony Xperia Ion On AT&T Price For $99 Available Late June

On June 24, AT&T is set to begin selling the Sony Xperia Ion smartphone on its 4G LTE network. The Sony Xperia Ion is an AT&T exclusive, and will sell with a two-year contract for $99.99. The handset runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and has a 12.1 megapixel camera, among other features.

Sony showed the Xperia Ion at CES in January, but only just announced an availability date, and that AT&T would be the carrier for the handset. Android runs on the phone’s 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Dual Core Snapdragon S3 processor. The Xperia Ion snaps photos with a 12.1 megapixel camera with a 16x digital zoom lens and LED flash. The camera is able to capture Full HD video, with some built-in extras from Sony’s camera line.

The phone weighs in at 5.1 ounces. The handset measures 5.2 by 2.7 by 0.4 inches, with a 4.55-inch HD Reality display with touchscreen capabilities. The TFT screen is made from a scratch-resistant glass that displays up to 16 million colors with 1280 x 720 pixels. Sony’s consumer electronics pedigree shows in the phone’s connectivity options. The phone includes HDMI, USB, NFC, WiFi and Bluetooth to hook up, sync up and stay connected. The HDMI connection makes Xperia Ion’s TV launcher available, which is a customizable home screen carousel of application shortcuts that lets users navigate the TV launcher, among other features.

For battery life, Sony boasts up to 10 hours of talk time; 400 hours standby time, and 12 hours listening time.

Sony Xperia Ion AT&T

Xperia Ion joins the ranks of AT&T’s 4G LTE phones on June 24. Those include the HTC Vivid, Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, LG Nitro HD, HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III. AT&T is still building it’s 4G LTE network, with the highest concentrations of the high-speed network’s coverage on the coasts, though it seems to be spreading West as AT&T continues to expand its technology.

At E3, the video game trade show in Los Angeles earlier this month, Sony talked about extending its PlayStation platform from the console and its handheld PlayStation Portable to mobile phones with its PlayStation Certification program. The program certifies that certain mobile handsets are capable of PlayStation-quality gameplay, which means PlayStation games as well as mobile games will have the same quality players expect on PlayStation devices. It’s likely that the Xperia Ion will have the PlayStation certification to say it can play high-quality games. The improved gameplay quality also means improved graphics and video on the handset.

The phone is on the radar of the wireless and consumer electronics industries. The new handset is a big play for Sony, which bought Ericsson out of its Sony Ericsson joint venture last year.

The Xperia Ion comes in a long line of Xperia phones from Sony, though some were previously part of the Sony Ericsson line-up. It follows several Xperia phones on the Android system such as Xperia Pro, Xperia Neo V, Xperia Active, Xperia arc S, Xperia ray and Xperia mini. Some of the handsets contained special features such as HD video and video chat while others focused on speed and rugged durability.

Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1ezVo)

Sony Xperia Ion Now Available In Hong Kong, reservations now opening

The Sony Xperia Ion is on its way to Hong Kong. The smartphone was first launched by AT&T in the US, and in the meantime it’s already arrived in Taiwan. And it seems like the next territory on the list is Hong Kong.

Sony Hong Kong has already started taking reservations for the Xperia Ion. The suggested retail price has been set at HK$ 5,198, which amounts to approximately Sony Xperia Ion Price is US$ 670 or €526 at today’s exchange rates.

The release date hasn’t been made public yet, but since reservations are open, it probably won’t be too far away in the future.

The Sony Xperia Ion has a 4.6-inch 720p HD touchscreen, a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, a 12 MP camera with 1080p Full HD video recording support, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of built-in storage space expandable with microSD cards, all the usual connectivity options, and a 1,900 mAh battery.

Sony Xperia Ion Available In USA at June 2012

Sony Xperia Ion is one of latest phone by Sony Mobile. The Ion has a 4.6-inch, 1280-by-720 pixel HD that looked absolutely gorgeous in person. And because the design of the phone itself is so pared down and trim, it didn't feel unwieldy like some other phones with 4.5-inch+ displays can. There's a built-in HDMI-out port, which means you easily view the content of your phone over an HDTV. The phone is also capable of sharing content via DLNA and Bravia Sync.

Sony Mobile has kept the US release of the AT&T-bound Xperia ion (LT28at) close to its chest. A release date has been nowhere to be found, yet a Google ad may have given the first indication that the handset is indeed on its way. When searching for the Xperia ion on Google, one of the paid searches showed that the Xperia ion was “Coming Exclusively to AT&T in June”. Whilst this is towards the end of the Q2 launch date originally given, it’s great that we at least have a vague launch date. So Sony Xperia Ion Availability In USA is at June 2012.

The US launch would tie in with what we are hearing about the launch date for the international version of the Xperia ion (LT28i). Taiwan Mobile will start taking pre-orders for the Xperia ion on 15 May, with the phone going on sale at the end of May.

Sony Xperia Ion Price

Sony Xperia Ion the sim-free price in Taiwan will be NT$19,900 ($678, €522, £420). We’re still to hear when the international version of the Xperia ion will launch outside of Taiwan.

Source : Gadget Spec Price Review

Xperia Ion Introduced

The first day of world's largest international consumer technology tradeshow appeared to be quite fertile for Sony Electronics (yes, SE is rebranded as Sony), with its President and COO, Phil Molyneux unveiling their most recent Android smartphone, the Sony Xperia Ion.

Promising to experience pure entertainment in brilliant HD, Sony Xperia Ion is quite easy to fall in love with! The phone hooks up into the 4G LTE network of AT&T, being available this spring. The 12MP camera to capture your memories in less than a second and an extremely thin design grabbed the attention of many, without a hands-on look at the device.

Other noteworthy specs include a 4.6-inch HD touchscreen, HDMI-out, plus an interface for a TV launcher and a 1280×720 display that makes use of Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine – suspected to be the same technology as to Sony’s line of Bravia TVs.

A compatible dock, the Xperia Ion comes with, enables larger display viewing, and when attached to a TV, users have the ability to play music, view photos and even send out SMS messages from the Xperia Ion to the TV- controlled using any TV remote!

As for the external appearance - Xperia Ion comes housed in an aluminum shell that's promoted as "thin, lightweight, and durable" and the screen is one of Sony's so-called Mobile Bravia Reality Display modules — a technology offering a laminated, gapless appearance.

A release date and price on the Xperia Ion is yet to be announced by Sony, but look for it to launch on AT&T this spring, and don't worry — an Android Ice Cream Sandwich is already in the works!

The Sony Xperia Ion will be the first Sony-branded phone to grace the U.S. market. Coming to AT&T, it packs in 4G LTE speed and a 12-megapixel camera, along with a guaranteed upgrade from Android 2.3.7 to version 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich."

Sony Ericsson is in the middle of becoming Sony; while Sony bought out the Ericsson part of the partnership, the transaction still hasn't legally closed. That means a firm still technically called Sony Ericsson is introducing smartphones with the Sony name on them.

We played with it a bit at the CES trade show. Slim, sleek, and ultra-sharp, the Ion was among the nicest devices we handled at CES.

The Ion has a 4.6-inch, 1280-by-720 pixel HD that looked absolutely gorgeous in person. And because the design of the phone itself is so pared down and trim, it didn't feel unwieldy like some other phones with 4.5-inch+ displays can. There's a built-in HDMI-out port, which means you easily view the content of your phone over an HDTV. The phone is also capable of sharing content via DLNA and Bravia Sync.

The Ion is sporting some impressive specs under the hood, as well. It's powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, and comes with 16GB of built-in memory. There's also an empty microSD card slot, which allows you to add up to 32GB of additional memory. The phone is running Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread), and Sony has pledged to upgrade its devices to Ice Cream Sandwich. It felt super swift and responsive as we swiped between home screens and loaded apps.

Xperia Ion Picture

The Xperia Ion also features an impressive 12-megapixel rear-facing camera that captures 1080p video at 30 frames per second. The camera uses Sony's Exmor R sensor, which Sony said greatly improves low-light performance. The camera was especially fast when we tried it out, snapping clear photos almost instantaneously. There's also a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat that is capable of recording 720p video at 30 frames per second.

The Ion will be PlayStation certified, running at least some PlayStation games. Sony's Playstation-everywhere strategy has been a little muddled. The Xperia Play phones have about 200 optimized games, but the Sony Tablet S only had a few dozen when I looked at it, and many well-known PS2 (not to mention PS3) names are missing. Sony execs said that over time, the Ion will gain more PS1 and PS2 games.

It's also unclear whether the Ion will better integrate Sony's media services than the Sony Tablet S ($399, 3 stars) does. Sony owns a lot of great content, but its Crackle, Ustream, Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services didn't connect with each other at all, requiring multiple sign-ins.

The Ion doesn't have a release date or pricing info yet, other than that it will be available in the "second quarter" of the year. By then it will go up against the HTC Titan II, which sports a 16-megapixel camera (albeit one which might not be as high quality as the Ion's) and the Nokia Lumia 900, with a high-quality 8-megapixel shooter sporting a Carl Zeiss lens.