Back when Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was released late last year, the trend among the smartphone OEMs is to give the high end devices in their respective lineups first dibs on the ICS refresh. We’ve seen this happen on the Galaxy S II from Samsung and the Sensation line of devices from HTC which got the ICS update ahead of their siblings. There was no one single explanation as to why high-end devices always get to be first in line for any major platform upgrade but we assume that it has something to do with the specs sheet of these handsets.
However, Sony Mobile deviated from this course of action and managed to get a couple of its midrangers like the Sony Xperia Mini upgraded to ICS. With this one step, Sony was able to prove that it is possible to make ICS work beautifully on a handset with average components under the hood. And since then, Sony was little by little getting its Xperia line of devices upgraded to what back then was the latest iteration of the Google Mobile operating system.
And now, Sony is continuing with the rollout of the Android 4.0 refresh to its Xperia line of devices and the latest beneficiary is the Sony Xperia Ion LTE. Reports are coming in that the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update has started rolling out to the handset in Taiwan and Hong Kong but we are pretty sure that the update will also make its way to other territories in due time. The ICS update will crank up the firmware version of the Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich while its version number will make the jump to 6.1.E.1.19 and will come with all the treats and goodies associated with ICS.
As for the Sony Xperia Ion LTE, the handset reached official status when it was announced back in January. Sad to say, the handset had to wait a couple of months first before it made its debut in the shelves in June. It is like your typical Android smartphone with a chassis swathed in a black paint job that makes it look like an ugly slab of black plastic. Its dimensions come up to 133 x 68 x 10.8 mm while its catch weight is at 144 grams.
Under the hood, the Sony Xperia Ion LTE relies on its QualComm MSM8260 SnapDragon chipset to power its operations while a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor works in conjunction with 1GB of RAM to ensure that the performance of the handset is always snappy and lag free. Its storage space on the other hand comes up to 16GB with an option for memory expansion using the microSD card slot of the kid. Display-wise, the Sony Xperia Ion LTE comes with an 4.55-inch LED-backlit LCD panel with a 1280 x 720 resolution while its camera department includes a rear 12MP shooter and a front 1.3MP snapper.
