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When it comes to capturing imagery, both still and moving, the Xperia Ion is unfortunately a mixed bag. On the plus side, the dedicated camera button will activate the camera automatically, and in a pinch, far more so than many other Android devices.
The app itself is the not stock Android variant that we have become used to. As such, there's not nearly as much control offered, which is a shame. Though on the plus side, still image quality is great, in both outdoor and indoor situations. So fiddling with settings is not such a necessity.
Though one unexpected issue was the very slow auto focus. There's no real rhyme or reason for thus, and it can be frustrating when that crucial moment is lost due to slow focusing. Video quality also suffered greatly due to a lack of image stabilization. One will want to replace their point and shoot camera with the Ion, but after some misfires, one will inevitably return to what worked before.
Voice quality and battery life
Voice quality was fine on both ends. One must assume AT&T's 4G bandwidth plays a part in this. Speaking of which, the Ion is one of the fastest AT&T devices, in terms of surfing the web and downloading apps.
After an hour of use, which encompassed a 15 minute long voice call, 15 minutes of watching YouTube via the dedicated app (running on 4G, no WiFi), 15 minutes of playing a moderately graphically intensive game, and the rest of the time dedicated to surfing the web (again, using AT&T's signal), the battery life decreased just 20 percent. That's not stellar, but far better for most phones in the same price range.
