VIZIO TABLETS DROP INTO COSTCO

We know it's been a long wait since CES, but after getting pawed at by both Blake Griffin and yours truly, the Vizio Tablet is starting to show up in stores right about on schedule. A source was able to snag this tablet at a local Costco store for $329 ($20 off the regular price), an achievement also unlocked by the folks at Mobileslate.

According to their reports you may have to ask around to find out if the VTAB1008 is actually in stock but it may be lurking along with its $40 Accessories Kit. The low end tablet is already showing in stock on the Vizio online store. Impressions so far suggest a "budget" tablet experience, above that of the flood of craptablets, with decent hardware and battery life, but a software experience behind the top of the line slates due to the custom UI, small internal storage and RAM and slower single core Marvell CPU.

VIZIO UNVEILS VIA LINEUP AHEAD OF CES

Vizio built its name on low-end HDTVs. Now, it is expanding into other areas and using the same business philosophy...make it cheap enough and people will buy it. Just ahead of CES, Vizio has announced they will be jumping into the tablet, phone and media TV sectors with their new VIA lineup.

The Vizio tablet will be 8-inches while the phone will be 4-inches. Both will run Android and have WiFi N, GPS, MicroSD slot, dual cameras and HDMI output. The tablet, at least at this time, will not have 3G capabilities and it is unknown if the phone will be GSM or CDMA.

In addition, Vizio will be launching a line of TVs and Blu-ray players with Google TV built in. This won't be the standard Google TV either, apparently Vizio is creating its own interface built on top of the standard Google TV interface. It remains to be seen(at CES later this week) if Vizio will be able to pull it off.