Sony has recently announced that they will be releasing the Xperia Ion in Taiwan. Announced at the CES 2012 back in January, the phone that will be made available in Taiwan is the LT28i which is the GSM version of the LT28at under AT&T which has LTE functionality.
Generally speaking, the handset shares a lot of similarities in terms of what is under the hood with the recently launched Xperia S here in the country. The only difference between the two is that the Xperia Ion (4.55”) has a slightly bigger screen than the Xperia S (4.3”) and that the Ion has lesser built-in storage capacity (16GB) than the Xperia S (32GB). The advantage of the former is that it has a MicroSD slot so the storage can still be upgraded up to another 32GB which is disappointingly missing on the latter.
Another thing that sets the two devices apart is their design. The Xperia Ion’s design is rather simple as compared to its Xperia siblings. It strayed away from the illuminating base with extended chin design of other NXT phones. Unlike the Xperia S that has a removable plastic back cover, the back of the Xperia Ion is made of texturized aluminum with the top and bottom portion made of matte plastic and the sides made up of glossy plastic. These, along with the all black color of the Xperia Ion give it a more sophisticated look than that of the Xperia S.
No official pricing and release date was mentioned. But if the rumors that this phone is due next month were true, then we won’t have to wait that much longer as April is about to close out soon. We’re hoping to get our hands on one of these handsets so we can take a closer look and write a full review. I guess we’ll have to wait for now.