Low-cost HDTV maker to sell stylish laptops and desktops via the Microsoft Store
The PC business isn’t viewed as a growth industry these days. Even when sales (and the economy) were good, the PC business was basically HP, Dell, and a bunch of Chinese competitors in a race for the bottom on prices.
So who in their right mind would enter the PC business in 2012? Well, Vizio, the Irvine, California-based maker of those low-cost HDTV sets you see at the entrance of every Coscto store.
Vizio has come out of nowhere to achieve great success after only 10 years in business, but its timing was impeccable. It entered the HDTV market just as that market for flat panel LCD screens started to heat up and it undercut everyone in the market with its sets.
Its sets were available in one place: Costco, in the TV aisle that’s always right by the front door, where you saw the same size TV from Samsung or Sony selling for $1,000 or more. Home theater snobs will have their say on the quality of a Vizio set vs. Sony, I’ll leave that for someone else to decide.
The company jumped into the Android tablet market last year with an 8-inch Android tablet that was notable for a very nice, integrated IR blaster, something no other tablet could offer, along with a pretty low price.
Instead of your standard mouse, Vizio offers a touchpad, which might prove to be its best bit of foresight in light of Windows 8’s touch capabilities. Everything is wireless. The only plug is for power.
The PC market is pretty saturated. You can buy them anywhere. But like with TVs, Vizio has an ace up its sleeve: it’s selling them through the Microsoft Store.
They aren’t cheap: $898 for the 14″ ultrabook, $1,199 for the 15″ laptop and a $1,049 starting price for the desktops. One thing they got going for them: they are bloatware-free. I purchased a Dell notebook last winter and promptly spent three hours uninstalling all the crap I didn’t need. The Vizio PCs will boot Windows 7 and that’s all you get.
I’ve spoken to Vizio briefly on these devices and they are not targeting business/enterprise users. This is purely for consumers. I suspect we may see some of the all-in-one PCs make some inroads simply because their design will make them ideal for tight spaces where a typical all-in-one PC would go.
I’m hoping to get my hands on one to benchmark and see how well it performs. In the mean time, it’s good to see someone get into this otherwise stagnant business and shake things up.
