VIZIO 8-Inch Tablet with WiFi - VTAB1008 Review

Immensely popular for its budget friendly HDTVs, Vizio is a company that has yet to be widely associated with smaller consumer electronic items such as tablet devices. But here it is, the Vizio VTAB1008, an android based tablet computer for the masses. It’s designed to be cheaper than most of the competition while providing much of the same hardware and software specs consumers have come to expect.

Physical

The Vizio 8-inch tablet computer is mostly jet black plastic covering the bezel area and the entire rear. There are no sleek aluminum touches in sight presumably to keep costs down, however, the build quality is still quite good. The Vizio tablet measures 8.1 x 6.6 x 0.5 inches, weighing 1.2 pounds. Compared to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 8.9 as well as the iPad 2, this Vizio tablet is a bit heavier but gets the pass mark for portability.

Surrounding the 8-inchcapacitive display on the front is a black bezel area, and the VGA front-facing camera which sits just above the screen. In true Android fashion, the Vizio tablet computer features three backlit capacitive buttons for Back, Home and Menu, useful when the device is held in Portrait mode. And turning the device to landscape view activates three separate buttons that serve same purpose as the usual Android buttons, a really nice touch that’s really welcome.

Cameras

The Vizio 8-inch tablet spots a single camera. And it’s a low resolution front-facing VGA camera enough taking lousy shots or video conferencing on Skype. Native resolution for the front camera is 640 x 480 at 30fps. There is no rear camera.

Network Connections, Ports & Audio

The Vizio tablet is a Wi-Fi only slate, hence, network connections are strictly limited to wireless b/g/n networks. The bottom of the tablet houses an empty microSD card slot, a microHDMI port, microUSB port and a speaker. The top edge is where the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack reside as well as the default two large stereo speakers with sound enhancements from SRS Labs. In all this tablet computer has three speakers with the device intelligently choosing which speakers to use as the device is held in portrait or landscape modes.

Processor

A 1GHz Marvell 600 Series Processor powers the tablet. RAM is set at 512MB with internal storage at a miserly 2GB. This leaves less than 1GB of user usable storage out of the box. Of course it’s always easy to expand storage by purchasing a MicroSD card of up to 32GB for additional storage.

Battery Life

Vizio officially rates this device for 10 hours with casual use. But in the real world, the Vizio tablet has come to last for slightly less than 7hours with a little bit of browsing, emails, gaming, and videos. This is the more realistic battery estimate for this device. The battery does pull its own weight amongst bigger folks like the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (8:23) or the iPad 2 (9 – 10hrs) both 10inch tablets with considerably larger batteries. Battery life on the Vizio tablet is also a lot better than many 7-inch tablets like the Acer Iconia Tab A100 (5:28).

Software

The Vizio tablet runs Android 2.3.2 although you’d hardly notice with the V.I.A plus custom user interface slapped on top. V.I.A is short for Video Internet Apps, a custom UI designed to offer a consistent look whether viewed on a small tablet display or massive HDTV.

The VIA Plus home screen is a simple applications menu with quick launch buttons below the main apps tray for browser, market, e-mail, gallery, and music. Widgetboard is a widget manager with 7 empty home screens you can fill with your favorite widgets. VIA also spots a few enhancements here and there, enhancements that make it identical to Honeycomb in use.

Universal Remote Control

Vizio installed Universal Remote Control capabilities in this tablet so users can control a large number of HDTVs and set top boxes with this device. It works not only with Vizio televisions but other makers as well. The Vizio tablet has an infra-red blaster and the remote control app uses a third party database with thousands of remote control presets to choose from.

The Vizio 8-inch tablet pc doesn’t fall short of expectations. Besides the absence of a rear-facing camera and its disappointing internal storage capacity, the Vizio 8-inch tablet computer is a simple budget tablet that hopes to capture a sizeable group of buyers based on its lower price point – a strategy Vizio has used to much success in the HDTV market.