AT&T Launching Sony Xperia Ion on June 24

Months after being unveiled at CES 2012, AT&T is announcing that it will release the Sony Xperia Ion 4G LTE smartphone on June 24.

The Xperia Ion will be Sony's first 4G LTE handset and will sell for $100 with a two-year contract. Customers will be able to purchase the device from Sony or at any AT&T store.

More about the Sony Xperia Ion

The phone is going to sport a 4.55-inch 720p HD Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA engine that will feature a resolution of 1280 x 720 (720p). It will run on a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 1GB of RAM. At the moment, the Ion will ship with Android OS 2.3 (Gingerbread). It's a good bet that it will receive the Ice Cream Sandwich update, but it is unclear when that will be.

The Xperia Ion will also come with 16GB of memory with the option to add up to 32GB via a microSD card. It will also include a 12.1MP rear-facing camera with 1080p HD video recording and a 1.3MP front-facing one. Sony has made the device PlayStation Certified, which will allow avid gamers a chance to play console-like games on the phone.

Other features are going to include HDMI video-out, Wi-Fi, Google Play, GPS, Twitter and Facebook integration, and a variety of Google applications. Customers will be able to get this phone in two colors: black or white.