As I reported here on this blog on June 10, the Xperia ion is coming to AT&T on June 24. AT&T formally announced the Xperia ion with a solid release date and a price tag. The Xperia ion will be available for $99 with contract and requires a data plan. This is a full $100 less than comparable phones from Samsung and HTC. For $99, the ion is priced to sell, and Sony hopes to capture a larger share of the Android market in the United States, where it has been largely overlooked.

My source told me the other day that they hoped to release the phone with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), which contributed to the delayed launch. There was no mention of ICS in the press release, so it looks like it will indeed be released with Gingerbread. I would expect the upgrade to come soon however, especially knowing that the upgrade is already in the works. The version of Android aside, this phone is very able to compete in the high-end phone market. Here is a review of the specs:

• 4.6″ 16 million color TFT display, with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels
• 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM8260 dual-core processor
• Adreno 220 GPU
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB eMMC internal memory
• microSD up to 32GB
• Supports UMTS/HSPA+ 850/1900/2100, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 bands, and LTE Band IV and Band XVII
• HD Reality Display, with Mobile BRAVIA Engine
• xLOUD audio filter
• Bluetooth enabled
• NFC enabled
• ANT+ enabled
• 12.1MP camera with Sony Exmor R CMOS sensor for low light, supports 1080p video
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera, supports 720p video
• Camera Features: LED Flash, Auto Focus, 16X Digital Zoom, 3D Sweep Panorama mode, and Face Detection
• Transfer Content through DLNA, HDMI and BRAVIA Sync
• 1500 mAh Battery
• PlayStation Certified

This phone should do pretty well against the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One X. The Galaxy has a larger battery and Gorilla Glass, and HTC has a larger battery. They are otherwise quite comparable. Sony does have a lot more at stake than the other two manufacturers, at least in the United States. This will mark the beginning of Sony’s solo comeback run, having bought out Ericsson’s stake in Sony Ericsson.

Sony has a lot of catching up to do, particularly in mind share. People need to think of Sony when they think of Android, rather than Samsung, Motorola, or HTC. The Xperia ion is certainly a move in the right direction. AT&T has not done so well historically in getting the word out about Sony Ericsson phones. Hopefully Sony’s marketing department will be up to the task.

You can learn more about the Xperia ion at Sony Store or at the Sony Mobile page.

I was searching for any current news about the Xperia ion from Sony, and found a link to AT&T’s website. I followed the link to a product page featuring a case for the ion. The product is the DualTek Rugged White/Gray Case, priced at $40. With an in-store release date no later than June 24 seeming increasingly likely, the fact that this product is on AT&T’s site is encouraging.

Interestingly, searching for ion on the AT&T site will only provide results for lithium-ion batteries. The case does not show up in the search results. It could be that Google is indexing things early, as with the initial June release announcement, or it may simply be new enough that AT&T’s search feature has not fully indexed the site.

One of Sony’s best features is the camera. Motorola is about to release a phone (Atrix 3 perhaps?) with a 13MP camera, so Sony would do well to release this 12.1MP camera phone in advance, and quickly follow up with the U.S. version of the Xperia GX, which also features a 13MP camera. It would not be good to let Motorola cut in on Sony’s primary differentiating feature.

I am looking forward to trying out the ion, and seeing how well it does against the competition. It looks it won’t be too much longer until I get the chance. Are you interested in the ion, or are you holding out for Sony’s next generation? Let me know in the comments.

The surprise Sony referenced on their tweet does appear to be about a product announcement. They decided to make a game of it though, and set the announcement date for June 22. Fans can log into Facebook and click a fast forward button to bring the announcement around before the 22nd. So far, it has already moved to the 21st. According to the page (and at the time this was written), 4,336 fans have clicked the fast forward button, advancing the announcement by 1 day, 0 hours, 5 minutes, and 20 seconds. Unfortunately you have to be logged into Facebook to participate in this, which means those of us who don’t use Facebook regularly will have to start if we want to play the game.

Clicking the fast forward button unlocks a competition as well. There appear to be four slots available, so the prizes for these unlock-able competitions could be some new or as-yet-unannounced phones. You can click the fast forward button once per day, so it will be interesting to see how the fans respond. You can go directly to the contest through the link Sony posted on twitter, or by clicking here for the same link.

Whether it is one phone or four they are about to announce, this should be interesting. Sony has not had as big a presence in the United States compared with other manufacturers, which may be largely due to a lack of awareness. Using Facebook may change this, but I am personally not a fan of any contest being held exclusively within Facebook, or requiring a Facebook log-in credential to play.

If you are a Facebook fan, or at least a big enough Sony fan to move past your dislike of Facebook, you should participate in this contest. With one click per user per day, this could either count down very slowly or can accelerate rapidly with enough participation. Let’s hope that the fans come out, and that the announcement is worth the hype.

I think the V150 is the more likely option. Unfortunately, the date mentioned eludes me, as my primary inquiry was about the Xperia ion and this was welcome, yet unexpected news. It was either at the end of this month, or within a few months. Sony has already indicated an intention to release additional tablets, so an upcoming successor to the Tablet S would make sense. I have had a great experience with my Tablet S, so I am looking forward to seeing what else Sony has in the works. I am sure we will be hearing more about it soon enough, so be sure to check back here for information. If you have any information, feel free to let me know in the comments.

The Xperia ion is finally on its way to the United States, having made stops in Taiwan and Hong Kong already. After six long months, the ion is nearly here.

Today I was in Sony’s flagship store in Century City, CA. Every time I find myself in a Sony store I make a point to ask for any information on the release of the ion. Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the imminent launch. The sales rep I spoke to said that it would be released the weekend after Father’s Day. The sales rep was restricted from telling me the specific date, but did tell me that it would be either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of that week. This was in store, and not a pre-order date. The sales rep said I could walk in and pick the phone up that weekend. This, and another prediction I saw regarding the release date both added up to an in store date of June 24 at the latest.

As we talked, the sales rep went on to say that one of the reasons for the delay was a desire on Sony’s part to release the ion with Ice Cream Sandwich. If this is true, and if they succeeded, the ion may be coming out with Android 4 after all. This would go a long way to silence the dissenters who have so far only griped about the operating system on an otherwise outstanding phone.

Excited as I was upon receiving this information, I looked for any other reference to the 24th. I only found a Twitter comment by Sony about a surprise they have in store for us on June 11. See the tweet here. A lot of speculation so far has been regarding either an Xperia Play 2, or a major improvement to the number of games in the PlayStation Network for Android. I am wondering if this will instead be the pre-order date for the Xperia ion. We will know soon enough.

With the customs delay of the HTC One X and the only recent release of Samsung’s Galaxy S III, I think the Xperia ion will be able to make a very large splash in the coming weeks. Until then, at least we know the wait is nearly over.

Sony announced several new phones at CES last week, destined for various parts of the world. North America is getting the Xperia ion by way of AT&T. The ion is similar to the Xperia S which has been named as the 2012 flagship product. There are a few differences between the ion and S though, so I will talk about the S separately. Here are the ion specs:

• Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich soon
• 4.55″ 16 million colour TFT display, with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels
• 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM8260 dual-core processor
• Adreno 220 GPU
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB eMMC internal memory
• microSD up to 32GB
• Supports UMTS/HSPA 850/1900/2100 and GSM /EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 bands
• LTE 700MHz and 1700MHz and UMTS HSPA+ 850MHz, 1900MHz and 2100Mhz
• Mobile BRAVIA Engine
• NFC enabled
• ANT+ enabled
• 12MP camera with Sony Exmor R CMOS sensor for low light, supports 1080p video
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera, supports 720p video
• Transfer Content through DLNA, HDMI and BRAVIA Sync
• PlayStation Certified

Where to start, here? This looks like the rumored Xperia duo we had been hearing about over the last few months. At 4.55″, this is a very large phone. A dual-core processor brings Sony into the modern phone era, though its competitors are already releasing their next-generation phones. Sony has some catching up to do, and this phone looks like it is off to a good start. Of note, the image sports the Sony logo, rather than Sony Ericsson. There is a note about the name pending regulatory approval, but Sony is planning to release this phone sans-Ericsson.

At 12MP, the camera will be hard to beat. Sony is advertising that it can go from standby to ready to shoot in less than 2 seconds. I am looking forward to seeing this in action. The Xperia X10 was a little slow on that front. Sony is gunning for Apple with this feature. Apple had spent a lot of time playing up the speedy camera feature. Sony’s video camera finally supports 1080p, and throws in 720p for the front-facing camera. I would have liked to see more than 1.5MP on the front-facing camera, but it should be more than sufficient for self portraits.

As with most Sony devices coming out these days, the phone is PlayStation Certified. There is already a pretty respectable list of Xperia Play games available, so if the ion can tap into this, it will be off to a good start. The Tablet S is still waiting for additional games, so it will be interesting to see whether the Xperia ion takes after the phones or tablets for PlayStation support.

Sony is offering a substantial 16GB of internal phone storage, and the microSD slot can support an additional 32GB. Whether you are using this phone for gaming or photography, you should be well-set in the memory department. With 48GB available, you should be able to do quite a bit of both.

Learning a valuable lesson from the Tablet S, Sony is including HDMI support in addition to DLNA. Not all users have DLNA devices, so Sony will be able to reach more customers who do have HDMI-enabled devices.

The Xperia ion is NFC enabled, which means it will support Sony’s new NFC tags, and can support Android Ice Cream Sandwich’s DLNA features.

Sony’s Xperia ion will be available at AT&T in the second quarter of this year, with some rumors hinting about the end of March. There is no word on pricing, or a solid release date.

The full version of Video Unlimited has officially arrived on the Sony Tablet S. When you try to launch the Video Unlimited app, you will see an update prompt. When you’ve installed the update, you’re good to go. Upon re-opening the app you will see an improved start page, and a navigation menu on the left. There are a lot of movies and television shows available to rent or purchase. Sony has broken the selections into the following categories: Store Top, New Releases, TV Shows, Movies, Collections & Sales, Top Movie Purchases, Top TV Episodes, Rent Now, and Deal of the Week. Clicking on the navigation options gets you to either a sub-category or a list of titles, depending on what you’ve clicked. The sub-menus look familiar for PS3 and PSP fans.

In the Top Movie Purchases section the titles are broken down into Popular Movies, Top TV Shows, and You Might Like. Each row moves independently of the others, which is a nice touch. In the Collections & Sales and Deal of the Week categories, the choices fill the screen instead of making you scroll through.

In the Collections & Sales and Rent Now sections you find the 99 cent rentals. Throughout the rest of the app, rentals run from $3-$5, much like a typical Blockbuster or standard video rental store. Though these prices are not abnormally high, Red Box gets the same movies for $1-$1.60 depending on your Blu-ray preference. As for the purchase prices, they are pretty standard. $15 will get you most new movies. Older movies are priced a bit lower. The Deal of the Week section offers movies for $5.

Overall, Video Unlimited is a pretty standard rental store. There is a pretty good selection already, and it will likely grow over time. It will be interesting to see how this store does when the UltraViolet cloud storage project launches. If these purchases are stored in UltraViolet, Sony can get a lot of play out of the two services. Until then, enjoy Video Unlimited. Let me know what you think about it in the comments.

Sony Ericsson and EA Games have teamed up with a new promo called “Get in the Game” for the Xperia Play. Between October 1 and January 15, 2012, Play owners can pick up four free games – Dead Space, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Need for Speed Shift, and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

So, how do you get your free games? Follow the instructions below:

You can check out the terms and conditions and the game descriptions on the official promo site at www.sonyericsson.com/getinthegame. Check out the video for Need for Speed Hot Pursuit below. There is a fairly graphic video for Dead Space available as well, but I’ll let you check that one out on your own at the Sony Ericsson YouTube channel.

NVIDIA has a convenient app to showcase its Tegra processor. It’s called the NVIDIA Tegra Zone. Smartphones and Tablets with the Tegra chip can take advantage of this app to find games specifically designed to showcase its capabilities.

NVIDIA Tegra-powered devices take advantage of the first mobile super chip to deliver extreme multitasking and breakthrough gaming performance. The best Web experience with up to 2X faster browsing, hardware-accelerated Flash and console-quality gaming. Discover everything you can do with your Tegra-powered super phone and super tablets on NVIDIA.com.
NVIDIA, Tegra Zone

The games run from free to $8, and are quite impressive visually. The colors pop, the processing is smooth, and the gameplay is pretty fun. One of the more popular games, Riptide GP is coming out in a non-Tegra optimized version, and is expected to be pretty nice.

Tegra “Super Tablets“

• Sony Tablet S
• Sony Tablet P
• Lenovo IdeaPad K1
• Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet
• Motorola Xoom
• T-Mobile G-Slate with Google by LG
• LG Optimus Pad
• ASUS Eee Pad Transformer
• Acer Iconia Tab A500
• Acer Iconia Tab A100
• Toshiba Thrive
• ASUS Eee Pad Slider
• Dell Streak 7

Tegra “Super Phones“

• Samsung Galaxy R
• Motorola Photon 4G
• Motorola Droid X2
• T-Mobile G2x with Google by LG
• Motorola Atrix 4G
• LG Optimus 2X

If you have one of these devices, be sure to check out the app. If you are on your computer, scan this QR code to find the app. From your phone, follow the link here.

Learn more about the Tegra Zone at www.tegrazone.com.

Sony Released a new ad this week on YouTube that has earned a lot of buzz, and with good reason. Bringing together favorites from PlayStation games past and present, Sony shows us what they could look like in real life in a live-action commercial. The video brings the various characters together to celebrate Michael, one of many PlayStation gamers. In essence, Sony is paying tribute to its customers in a really cool way. Check out the video above.

I thought it was nice to see Kratos, Nathan Drake, Cole, and Ezio in live action, having spent so much time with their in-game personas. Even Sackboy was a nice touch. What do you think? Did they leave anyone out? Who was your favorite character? Let me know in the comments.