The Ion packs some wicked specs. The Ion runs on a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm with 1GB of RAM. The S3 processor isn't as fast as Qualcomm's S4 line, which powers the , but it was more than capable of handling everything I threw at it. Apps opened without a hitch, and HD videos played back smoothly. In general, games ran quite well on the Ion, too.

The Ion can connect to AT&T's speedy LTE network, and in less than 10 minutes I successfully downloaded more than 500MB of data to it at our San Francisco offices. Call quality over AT&T's network was fairly solid, though I did notice a distinct hissing noise during all of my calls. Voices on both ends of the call came through clearly, however, despite the hiss. I would have preferred a tad louder default volume from the speaker, but I had no trouble adjusting the volume to a more comfortable level.

After about 5 hours of downloading apps over LTE, taking pictures, watching videos, and making calls, I found that the Ion's battery was still at 83 percent capacity. That experience suggests that, with mild use, you should have no problem getting a full day's use from the phone on a single charge. A more precise battery life number, however, must await the phone's completion of our official PCWorld Labs battery test.

The Sony Ion also supports near-field communication, and you can use it to read and write information to other devices or tags that are NFC-enabled.