Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas attracts hundreds of thousands of attendees (in fact, CES 2012 broke the previous attendance record with 153,000!) So how does a company differentiate itself from the thousands of other vendors?
Put your booth in a ballroom of one of the swankiest hotels on the Strip, of course. And make it exclusive. That’s exactly what Vizio did this year at CES, exhibiting in the Wynn Hotel. So what kind of products did the company unveil this year? Read on to find out.
We met with Vizio at the Wynn Hotel on the Vegas Strip at CES this year, likely one of the more expensive little bits of real estate for the weekend. The company brought along a number of new products, including some TVs, updated tablets, and even some ultrabooks (Yes, Vizio is getting into the computer game).
We were scheduled to see the more gadget-y side of things (tablets over TVs, etc.), but the booth was running a bit short-staffed by the end of the day, so we were grouped with a short, balding guy interested in purchasing displays.
While not our goal, most of the new Vizio TVs were at least up to par with the “other guys:” an 85″ HDTv, a 65″ 3DTV and cinematic displays lined the walls. The whole place gave off an Entertainment 720 vibe. In the most positive sense, of course.
Besides TVs, the company also brought along a number of impressive-sounding 2.0, 2.1 and 5.1 sound bars for demonstration.
As far as tablets, Vizio didn’t bring any new hardware to Vegas, but announced that their 8″ $200 Android tablets – released last year – would receive a major OS update, including an upgrade to performance and a new UI.
But the biggest treat the company brought to CES was their new line of computers. The company has plans to release four computers in Q2 – two all-in-one desktop models and two ultrabook-style laptops.
Although very sleek in appearance, the all-in-ones have a look quite reminiscent to some other all-in-ones already on the market. They will feature wireless keyboards and trackpads.
Vizio will market the desktops with a “PC for entertainment” mindset, boasting the ease of connecting an Xbox 360 to the computers, and including a 2.1 sound system with each model, with the subwoofer cleverly doubling as a power supply.
The PR woman assured us that the all-in-ones, with their emphasis on entertainment, would feature “enhanced audio,” but refused to let us give the sound systems a listen.
Also on display were two ultrabooks from Vizio. Despite the lack of optical drives, the company hopes to push the ultrabooks with entertainment/media in mind, like the all-in-ones.
And, again, the ultrabooks seem to take a page from someone else. The sleek little devices are thin and sexy, but Vizio still promises that they’ll be rugged enough for serious-ish use as entertainment hubs (playing HD video, connectivity to sound systems, etc.)
Vizio hasn’t made any official announcement as to what kind of specs we can expect to see from their very first venture into the PC business, because “our customers don’t usually care,” but we can infer that an “ultrabook”-branded laptop would have Intel inside.
For all-in-ones, the 24″ and 27″ models are expected to hit shelves by May/June. The 14″ and 15.6″ ultrabooks will release around the same time. No price points have been announced yet.
For more on Vizio at CES, please visit our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to check out the exclusive image gallery below. And for more CES news, keep reading gagagadget!
