Vizio VTAB1008 – Review
Tablets rarely distinguish themselves on so many counts, but the Vizio VTAB1008 is unusual in terms of size, customized interface, remote control, and low price. In the last few years Vizio have made a name for themselves in high-def TVs with a simple combination of quality at a low price. They’ve carried this philosophy into the tablet market with the Vizio Tablet VTAB1008. The VTAB1008 sells for $299.
It features an 8″ screen, unusual amongst the 7- and ten-inchers on the market, but at 0.5″ thick and weighing a solid 1.3 pounds, it’s more of a stone tablet than a lightweight ultraportable. Consequently it feels more solid than, say, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The tablet’s rear is finished in a matte, fingerprint-resistant plastic.
Changing the tablet’s orientation to either landscape or portrait causes the trio of backlit buttons for ‘Home’, ‘Menu’, and ‘Back’ to automagically jump from one bezel to the other to retake their position beneath the screen. Two of the three speakers along the tablet’s edges activate in similar fashion, minimizing the chance of blocking one of them while holding the tablet.
The Vizio Tablet VTAB1008 runs Android 2.3, but Vizio has modified the system graphics to ape the Vizio Internet Apps built into it’s newest generation of Internet TVs. As a cross-range branding exercise, it’s shrewd marketing, and taken in isolation on the Tablet VTAB1008, it’s still an attractive alteration.
Thus Android’s typical desktop makes way for a personalized app collection, more like Apple’s iOS approach. In this way a selection of favorites can be placed along the upper edge of the screen while an ever-present group of default apps – browser, email, market, music, gallery – runs alongs the bottom.
All these apps can be customized or deleted, as in iOS, yet underneath all the customizations, the OS is still undeniably Android. The full Google app suite is here Gmail, Maps, Latitude, Navigation, Places, Talk, YouTube, and Google App Market. Another feature of the Vizio Tablet VTAB1008 is the universal remote control app that enables the tablet to be used as a remote control for most brands of audio or visual equipment. Just tap in the device’s model number, and you’re away.
Socketwise, the Vizio Tablet VTAB1008 offers a micro-HDMI port, a micro-USB socket for syncing files, and a microSD slot for much-needed expansion of the paltry 4GB of internal storage.
General system speed is just a bit sluggish, whether opening, closing or minimizing apps, scrolling webpages, or navigating around the OS. As ever, switching off OS animations helps a great deal.
In short, the Vizio Tablet VTAB1008 can’t match the 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab for looks or performance, and prices of top-range Android tablets are constantly falling, but for $299 the Vizio is a good deal.
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