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Vizio Tablet VTAB1008: Pleasant Surprise

25.09.2011
TV maker Vizio has always followed its own course, and its first foray into the growing tablet market is no exception. The company's awkwardly named Vizio 8" Tablet with Wi-Fi (VTAB1008, $330 as of 9/23/2011) is the rare tablet with an 8-inch display, and it's one of the few to market to eschew Google's Android 3.x Honeycomb operating system for the older Android 2.3. That said, this bulky tablet could be a good value choice for those who want to get a taste of life with a tablet, but who have no grandiose expectations for high performance or high design.

In some ways, the Vizio tablet is a refreshing surprise. The company provides its own overlay on top of Android 2.3 which makes the interface feel fresh and friendly--and more tablet appropriate. The company didn't do wholesale revisions of core apps, though, so the Google Mail app feels clunky compared to the multi-pane approach in Honeycomb, for example. Ditto for the Music app. Oh, and the Web browser, while we're grousing. But the Apps Menu is better presented than on stock Android 2.3, and overall, I liked what Vizio did better than what I've seen with the HTC Sense UI overlay on the HTC Flyer.

Vizio's special sauce includes its rework of Android's notification system to simplify their presentation; the widget board for aggregating all widgets in one place (instead of placing them on separate home screens, as is the case on other Android tablets); and providing a cleaner App Menu design, with persistent tabs at the bottom for browser, market, e-mail, gallery, and music.

The company says its interface customizations, seen here as the application launcher (with all app and subsets of apps based on categories), notifications, and the tab dock at the bottom, will be consistent with how its interface will look on the company's new Vizio Internet Apps Plus platform HDTVs and Blu-ray players coming later in 2011 and beyond. The V.I.A Plus platform will bring Android apps to your TV; the company says it will have future services and products that will tie into the tablet and other V.I.A. Plus platform devices together.

Overall, though, I found the Vizio interface refresh pleasing. From the changing orientation of the three capacitive touch buttons that run along the bottom of the screen--regardless of whether you hold the tablet in portrait or landscape modes, to the well-designed lock screen and well-defined power button up top, the Vizio was not just another value tablet.

Vizio's attention to interface extended to the company swapping the stock keyboard with the SwiftKey X keyboard. This highly responsive keyboard makes typing more natural than with the standard Android offering, and customizations like two functions assigned to a key, and a split thumb-keyboard design for use in landscape mode are convenient touches.