Sony Ericsson released many Xperia smartphones in quick succession, such as the Xperia Arc and the Xperia Arc S appearing within 6 months of each other last year, but then the Japanese manufacturer Sony bought out the 50% company share held by its Swedish partner Ericsson for €1.05 billion and assumed complete control of the enterprise. Going it alone, Sony intend to integrate their mobile phone business into their consumer brand so that smartphones, TVs, tablets and laptops can all work together smoothly.
It was announced in January at CES that Sony were launching two new devices – the first to be under the new Sony brand – the Xperia Ion aimed at the US markets and the Xperia S for international markets including the UK. The Xperia S hit the UK retail outlets in March this year and has received favourable reviews. Measuring 128 x 64 x 10mm it looks sleek although it is not a slim as some of the recently released smartphones and is a little heavy weighing 144g. The plastic casing comes in black or white, although the white option is only available through Phones4U and therefore not so easy to get hold of.
The Xperia S has a 4.3 HD 1280 x 720 Bravia display and according to one review the quality of the Sony mobile Bravia technology is visually good enough to rival Apple’s Retina display. The Xperia S has a 1.5GHz dual core processor with 32GB internal storage, comes with 1GB RAM and runs on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. To the rear is fixed a 12 megapixel Exmor R camera with a 1.3mp front-facing camera. Whilst progress has been made with Sony’s Xperia S model, things have been slower for the Xperia Ion in the United States. However, a release date for Sony Xperia Ion, with AT&T as the carrier, has now been confirmed as the 24th June.
The Xperia Ion is Sony’s latest 4G LTS smartphone. It has a display 1280 x 720p and as with the Xperia S this is enhanced by Sony mobile Bravia Engine technology which Sony are calling “HD Reality”. It runs on a dual core 1.5GHz processor, has 16GB inbuilt storage and as with its international counterpart runs on the Android Gingerbread platform.
This handset comes with a 12mp fast capture camera with quick launch feature and dedicated camera button. It takes only 1.5 seconds from stand by to taking the first shot. Thereafter it takes less than 1 second to capture subsequent images. It is also equipped with a 1.3 megapixel front camera capable of recording video in 720p. Being a Sony device gamers will be pleased to know that the Xperia Ion is Playstation certified.