Sony Xperia ion

Overview

Sony Xperia Ion: Feature-rich Android Phone

Sony’s Xperia Ion mobile is a successor to the Xperia Arc S, and an eagerly awaited competitor to the Samsung Galaxy III and HTC One X. So how well does it match up?

Design and Build Quality of Sony Xperia Ion

The design of the Ion is far less flashy than other handsets in the Xperia series. Weighing in at 144g, it’s certainly heavier than most. However, the handset has a certain glossy elegance, with a curving metal back and highlight trim around the top and bottom edges on its rear. Its large LCD 4.55” screen (1280x720 resolution) is generous but looks dark and slightly off-color even when at maximum brightness, and suffers in comparison with a phone like the HTC One X. Four thin physical buttons – Menu, Home, Back, and Search – are positioned beneath the screen, as is the custom for Gingerbread. These are not back-lit, which is awkward in low-light settings.

Sony Xperia Ion User Interface and Comfort to Use

Inside the phone is a 1.5Ghz dual core Qualcomm Adreno 220 processor and 1GB RAM, which look a little antiquated next to some of Sony’s other offerings. The performance of the phone is relatively poor: it performs basic tasks slowly and there are delays when opening apps. Disappointingly, Sony opted for the rather aged Android Gingerbread software, but has since updated it to the more up-to-date Ice Cream Sandwich, with the Timescape UI loaded on top. There are the standard 5 home screens, with some degree of customizability: folders can be created dropping app icons onto one another. The absence of widgets in the app drawer is annoying.

Telephony and Phonebook

Full integration with Twitter and Facebook makes it easy to build up your phonebook by drawing info from a range of platforms, via the tabbed app interface. Contacts can be grouped, searched and sorted quickly, and the Favorites tab is useful. Call quality for the Ion was very good: voices are clear, rich and realistic, with very little distortion; and recipients also find call quality to be good. The front camera is a 1.3MP HD with 720p resolution, making it video-chat capable. The lack of smart dialing is, however, a let down.

Messaging and Emails

The Ion supports MMS, SMS and IM, and handles all three well. You can use either Gmail or the native Xperia offering, both offering multiple account support. You can view and search all your communications with a contact chronologically. The phone’s on-screen QWERTY keyboard is relatively comfortable to use, particularly in landscape format on the phone’s large screen. However, there are no advanced text-entry methods such as Swype or support for one-handed typing, and it’s easy to make mistakes.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

The phone comes with plenty of internal memory for media: 16GB out of the box, plus memory card support for an additional 32GB. However, the phone’s display is a letdown for viewing photos and videos: colors appear muted and dim sections of video are virtually impossible to see. The lack of support for file formats will force most users to download third-party software from Google Play, but the phone’s processor is too slow to handle 1080p resolution. The photo gallery app is minimalist but workable, and the video player likewise, with few options to customize playback.

Music Player and FM Radio of Sony Xperia Ion

Audio quality on the Ion is top-notch, with great clarity up to almost the loudest volume. File format support is wide-ranging, and the interface is nevertheless clear and easy to use, with some useful search and sorting features. The phone includes a well-built FM radio app with RDS.

Still Camera and Image Quality of Sony’s Xperia Ion

The Ion features a rear 12.1MP camera. Despite the impressive specs, the camera’s performance is disappointing. Sony claims that the sensor has an extraordinarily fast capture time, and this holds true, but it’s let down by the slow auto-focus, which lags behind. There are some useful scene modes such as Portrait, Night and Landscape; as well as Panorama/3D Panorama settings. The image quality is only average: shots are muted, noisy and not very detailed, although the back-lit sensor does a good job of handling different lighting.

Video Camera and Video Quality

Recording with the camera is easy and intuitive, but the video captures were uninspiring, even in 720p-resolution. Details are often soft and noisy, and colors are dim and lack depth, with a few stutters.

Connectivity Options of Sony’s Xperia Ion

The phone includes Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 support and 3G HSDPA (7.2MBps). It supports tethered Wi-Fi connections. It includes NFC support, an HDMI port, and a micro-USB connection for exchanges with compatible devices.

Organiser and Other Utility Tools

The usual suspects are all here: Clock, Calendar (with daily, weekly and monthly views), Calculator and Tasks. Users can use OfficeSuite to view Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents up to 2007 versions, and reading documents is smooth and pleasant.

Sony Xperia Ion Web Browser and Applications

With Chrome as the browser of choice for Android phones now, users will find web browsing enjoyable on this phone. However, the lack of Flash support in Chrome may irritate some; and the phone feels underpowered for its ICS OS, frequently stuttering when zooming or scrolling through pages. The phone comes pre-loaded with the usual suite of Google apps, including Gmail, Navigation, Maps and Google Play, which links to Google’s vast digital entertainment store. There are also third-party apps like Amazon’s Kindle app and the OfficeSuite app made by MobiSystem, and of course users can access thousands of Android apps via Google Play or Android Market.

Google Maps and GPS

The phone comes with A-GPS technology for super-fast location. It comes with Google Maps, including turn Street View and Latitude. With two-finger camera rotate and tilt, you can quickly pan around areas, plan routes and search local POIs. Overall, performance is quick and smooth.

Value for money and Verdict

The Xperia Ion is highly affordable phone and for users looking for a functional Android phone, it’s a good buy; but if camera quality or media playback is important, you might want to save up for a better handset. An interesting phone that endeavors to be an affordable 4-inches, the Sony Xperia Ion nevertheless suffers some serious performance issues – if you’re looking for a phone that can handle tasks with ease, look elsewhere.