Sony Xperia Ion smartphone Shines pixels without glare: Review & Specs

With its large screen and 720p HD Bravia Engine, the Sony Xperia Ion gives an image of the first order, but a slight overweight and especially autonomy below average.

Xperia Ion

Despite its beautiful display, the smartphone Sony Xperia Ion is a little too large and not enough to convince independent.

The promise

The Xperia Ion is designed for lovers of images. Its large display of 4.6 inch diagonal displays HD (720 x 1280 pixels) and benefits from the technology image editing software “Bravia Engine” inspired engine displays that Sony uses for its televisions.

Reality

At first glance, the Xperia Ion displays a rather neat aesthetic, mainly due to quality materials. Its shell is not of completely aluminium, but it appears to face a certain nobility smartphones all plastic.

The problem is that this model, despite a relatively reasonable weight (147 grams on our scale) seems heavy in hand, because of its large size and its thick. It is difficult, if not impossible to use with one hand, and carry it in a pocket of jeans is not comfortable at all.

One of the finest display

The display of the Xperia Ion is a marvel of brightness (539 cd / m 2 ) and colors. It displays a beautiful contrast ratio for this type of device (1 057:1) and image rendering is set.

Careful, however Bravia Engine technology, which allows properly adjust the contrast of the pictures displayed, but which tends to saturate the colors. The effect is very flattering to the eyes, but purists prefer to disable it for higher fidelity. And with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels (319 dpi), this display provides easy reading and very valuable dive. Hats off!

Good in pictures and video

Multimedia side, this smartphone is not compatible with WMV, WMA or AAC but it can easily read video in 1080p (and exploit its micro-HDMI output to a TV Full HD). The visual interface of the Android operating system (version 4) is a feast for the eyes, sometimes at the expense of ergonomics. Applications, however, are very numerous. They offer a full range of features and benefits of the same content (movies, music) directly proposed by Sony.

Finally, the optical sensor of 12.1 megapixels of camera in Sony Xperia Ion did a good job, even if the quality of photos and videos captured is a little off against the best smartphones on the market.

Moderate power

The dual core processor of the Sony Xperia Ion smartphone is a little outdated, but it should still turn to the vast majority of applications available for Android. It is rather its integrated graphics (Adreno 220) finds itself limited in video games in 3D, mainly because of the high definition screen that must be supplied. The game GTA 3, for example, is not smooth in 720p. Must be reduced by half its definition graphics to play comfortably, Note especially that the Adreno 220 starts to date, and that is not a chipset for future players.

Limited autonomy

The Xperia Ion suffers from a defect particularly important autonomy too short. It took 6 hours and 35 minutes of talk time, which is a bad score. It’s doing a little better Web browsing 3G (5 hours) and video playback (over 6 hours), but still far from the best.

This is all the more regrettable that the battery of the smartphone is not removable, and especially that it has no sensor for automatic adjustment of the brightness of the screen. On a high-end device, which consumes a lot of energy to maximum brightness, the absence of this sensor is simply incomprehensible.

The verdict

In short, the Xperia Ion will offer high quality screen but not really managed to impress us. Its extended functionality is available on other smartphones Xperia upscale Sony. And yet we find the problem of the software environment of the manufacturer, which focuses on graphic design in neglecting some usability and utility applications. A little too big, too heavy, we prefer the Xperia P midrange, more balanced. This was all about Sony Xperia Ion review.

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