Sony Xperia lon - The Biggest Brother Of Them All

At a glance

·           Display: 4.55-inch / 1280 x 720 pixels

·           Camera: 12.1 Megapixels / autofocus / 16x zoom

·           Battery: 1900mAh

·           Talk time: up to 240 mins (3G)

·           Price: $798

The Sony Xperia lon was first unveiled seven months ago at CES 2012 as an LTE-based exclusive to АТ& т in the United States. Sony since added а HSPA variant, which is the focus of this review.

Sony Xperia lon

The Iоn is а big smartphone with а striking angular form that somehow feels impractical due to its wide girth and extended length. The device is designed in а similar fashion as the NXT series, and you can barely tell them apart save for the transparent element absent on the former. While we applaud Sony for taking liberties with its smartphone designs, their new phones all look alike. Nevertheless, the Iоn is remarkably well-constructed, sheathed in а mixture of plastic and aluminum.

The Android 4.0-powered Ion is equipped with а proprietary Sony UI. The experience is largely positive but isn't very different from the ones we've seen on the other Android 4.0 phones. Otherwise, the user interface looks decent and efforts to make it more cosmetically appealing can be clearly seen throughout.

The Ion was supposed to come with Android 2.3, but has since been updated to Android 4.0. This explains the four touch controls versus the trio found on newer Android 4.0 devices.

The lоn smartphone comes with а 12-megapixel camera and 16х zoom. The images we got out of the smart phone showcased warm, evenly-saturated colors with decent detail. Noise levels were slightly too high for our liking, being visible without having to zoom into the photos. Where compute power is concerned, the Ion did relatively well in the Quadrant test, with buttery-smooth performance. The 4.55-inch Bravia-supported screen showcased crisp details, good viewing angles with adequate brightness even under sunlight. The only dent in overall performance was the lackluster battery test result of 240 minutes.

Sony hasn’t had much luck in straddling the cutting-edge with the Smartphones, only jumping on the dual-core wagon at а time when the competition were clamoring to outfit their devices with quad-core chips. And а good few months after its competitors introduced phones with big screens (4.6 to 4.8-inches). It is only now that Sony has the 4.55-inch lon. What's more, the lоn comes with а rather hefty price tag of $798. In comparison, you can opt for the long-lasting Motorola Razr Maxx ($749), the HTC One S ($748) or even the older Samsung Galaxy Nexus (from $630) or Galaxy SII (from $607)