Sony Xperia ion available on AT&T, June 24 for $99

I might have misfired with my prediction that Sony’s little Facebook experiment would be the ion. A matter of days later, we have confirmation that the ion will make its promised Q2 2012 release date on AT&T by the skin of its teeth.

The ion will be the first Sony sans Ericsson smartphone to launch in the US, and it’s a very respectable handset, especially considering the price at launch will be just $99.
The specs are somewhat middle of the road by now, but I’d put it at the front of the mid-range devices. The one hangup there is that it will be running Android 2.3.7 at launch with no specific date for an Android 4.0 update.

• 4.6-inch Reality display at 1280×720
• 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S3  processor
• 12.1 MP Exmor-R rear camera
• 1 MP front-facing camera capable of 720p video
• 16 GB internal storage w/microSD slot
• PlayStation Certified
• LTE
• HDMI, DLNA and NFC

It’s been awhile, but we did get some hands on time when they first announced the ion at CES. I came away quite impressed with the hardware. The camera in particular is very well done and can go from standby to shooting an image in just seconds. You can watch our test of that feature below.

The PlayStation Certification is worth noting as well since it may finally start paying dividends for users this year, with Sony seeming to have found some renewed interest in the program.
By the time this launches on June 24, you’ll be able to head into an AT&T store and try it out side-by-side with the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III. While I personally would lean toward one of those options, I can certainly see this doing well with folks that want to save $100 on a new phone.
Any Sony fans looking forward to the new flagship device?

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