The Sony Xperia Ion: A Photographer’s Smartphone?

With CES 2012 kicking off, a slew of smartphones, tablets, and various other electronic gadgets and gismos, are sure to be announced. Sony announced the Xperia Ion which looks to be very promising on the photography front.

Since the inception of smartphones, built-in cameras have allowed people to take good pictures while not having to lug around a camera wherever they go. The simplicity allows for very easy sharing and transfer, say to one’s computer.

One of the features about the Xperia Ion that sets it apart from the rest of the competition, is the camera. While an 8 megapixel camera is pretty standard in new phones out in the marketplace currently, the new smartphone from Sony kicks that up a notch with a 12 megapixel camera.

Yes, a 12 megapixel camera. Several years ago, this would have been unheard of and even a point and shoot 12 megapixel camera would have run you more than what you can get a new smartphone on a 2 year contract.

According to Ginny Mies of PC World, the Sony Xperia Ion takes surprisingly good photos in low light which is a big plus for those kinds of situations. With all that talk about the camera out of the way, here’s some of the specs:

• 4.6 inch Mobile BRAVIA Engine display
• 1280×720 (720p HD) resolution
• 1.5Ghz dual core processor
• 16GB storage
• HDMI out
• 4G LTE through AT&T
• 12 megapixel camera with LED flash, autofocus, and 1080p video recording

And did we mention that Sony claims the Xperia Ion can get you to taking a photo in just 1.5 seconds from standby mode? Pretty impressive.