Smarter than ever

Sony's latest smartphone, Xperia ion, is set to give rivals a run for their money

The first thing that strikes you about Sony’s latest smartphone, Xperia ion, is its screen. At 4.6 inches, the screen is not AMOLED but HD, which makes the display eye-catching. While outdoors, even in the sunlight, one can very clearly see and doesn’t have to squint to read or browse pictures. Add to that an excellent camera — 12 megapixels — the Xperia ion is certainly a phone that will catch the fancy of people who like to click pictures. The picture quality is, in fact, better than HTC’s One X and a few other contemporary phones. Its 342ppi enhances the display quality on several levels.

Once you go beyond the display quality of the ion, you see that it’s a phone which runs rather smoothly. It comes with a Android 4.0 and runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 dual-core processor. Multitasking is quite good even though it supports only 1GB RAM. At 144g, it’s a bit heavier than the iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy S3, but it’s sleek and stylish. The screen is cold glass, and the top and bottom of the phone’s back are soft-touch plastic.

The battery is a bit of a downer, especially if you listen to music for too long or use too many apps. But that’s an issue which most smart phones deal with and the ion is no exception. Sony claims it has a talktime of up to 10 hours, but it’s certainly less than that. If you like to carry multiple batteries with you and prefer to change them in a day, the Xperia ion isn’t the ideal phone.

Having said that, the Xperia ion is ahead of any smartphone that Sony has introduced in the market on several counts — be it battery, camera, display or the user interface it provides. The Ion comes with 16 GB storage capacity and it can take up to additional 32GB microSD card. Video recording on the phone is extremely good, and it comes with active noise cancellation in the microphone as well.

The phone comes loaded with the usual Android applications, and browsing apps on the Play Store is very easy. Wifi connectivity on the phone was a bit of a problem as it took quite some time to locate the network. For gamers, there’s an add-on as one can sync the Playstation Games through this phone. Because of the excellent clarity of the screen, playing games on the ion is a great experience.

Sony is looking to make the ion its flagship phone in this category, and the phone certainly has the capacity to create ripples in the market.

For a phone priced at Rs 36,999, the ion certainly matches up to the phones in this price category. For the camera and display alone, the phone is worth buying.

If you’re looking for a smartphone above Rs 30,000, the Xperia ion definitely fits the bill.