And finally, finally, finally, Vizio has fully unveiled its brand new line up of laptops and all-in-ones. The successful American TV maker announced its new kit at CES in January, catching my eyes with a set of beautiful, distinctive laptops and all-in-ones, and, as they promised back then, they have now unveiled all. This has want written all over it. Update: Rejoice: non-glossy, matte screens on the laptop.
Especially the all-in-ones intrigue me. I’m actually a fan of the form-factor, but few companies have ever been able to offer decent Windows all-in-ones that even came close to Apple’s iMac. These new machines by Vizio seem to be the first – and it’s done by a newcomer, not an incumbent. The only question remaining was price, and it seems Vizio has nailed that one as well.
The all-in-ones (more non-rendered prettiness here) come in either 24″ or 27″, both as 1920×1080 panels – which is a little bit of a letdown; I had hoped that the 27″ model would at least have a higher-res BTO option. For the rest, we’re looking at Intel Ivy Bridge processors, NVIDIA Kepler GeForce GPUs, and storage options that max out at a 1TB regular HDD coupled with a 32GB SSD for the operating system. It comes with a wireless subwoofer, touchpad and keyboard.
Software-wise, Vizio scores major, major brownie points by working very closely with Microsoft to deliver a completely vanilla Windows 7 installation, with not a single piece of bloatware. Only Microsoft Security Essentials has been installed, but considering its lightness, I wouldn’t call that bloatware. To illustrate just how far Vizio as willing to go with this: all Vizio’s machines come with a special ‘V’ key (on F1) to launch services like Hulu Plus, Vudu and Netflix; however, none of these will come pre-installed, just to avoid bloatware. Nice, nice going.
And now for pricing. The all-in-ones will start at $898 for the 24″, and $1098 for the 27″. That’s way cheaper than I originally anticipated, which makes me very happy. I really, really want one of these, so I hope Vizio will sell them internationally; so far, the company has focused entirely on its home-turf, the North-American market. If any of you know anybody who works at Vizio – let us know.
As far as laptops go, Vizio has managed to create a unique and uniform design there too. There’s two models which you could classify as ultrabooks, but Vizio calls them thin ‘n’ light. They’ve got the same Ivy Bridge processors, and sport an Intel HD4000 graphics chip. They come in both 14″ (1600×900) and 15″ (1920×1080). There’s also a slightly thicker 15.6″ model, which sports a discrete Nvidia Keppler GPU. Each of these also start at $898.
It would seem that it takes a newcomer to finally be able to do what HP, Dell, etc. could not: create a simple line-up of crap-free, beautiful computers at reasonable prices, to properly compete with Apple. These Vizio machines will appear at all the major retailers and can be ordered from Vizio.com starting tomorrow.
A very strong first showing for the new kid in town. Now, how about those international orders?
Sexy as a succubus. Just like the one from Acer. It makes the MacBook pro look old and boring.
Just wish the industry would get serious about battery life. 5hours is way too short. 10 hours is still bad. These things should be charged once a week.
Yes, brushed aluminium looks dull, I crave for a more colored ultrabook (or I might paint one myself :p)
Exactly. Stop making things thinner, and stick bigger/better batteries inside. We don’t need laptops under 1″ thick … we need laptops that will last a full work/school day away from an outlet. Just like we don’t need phones that are thin enough to slice cheese … we need phones we can use heavily for a full day (or even three) without lugging a charger around.
We’ve gone way beyond the useful limits for “thin”. We need longer usage times!!
+11111111111111111111
Evidently there is no demand for a laptop, phone, or whatever, that lasts all day, or the manufacturers would make them. That’s why the skinny phones like the Droid Razr sell like hotcakes even though you have to start looking for a power outlet before noon if you use the LTE to any degree at all. Same thing for the ultrabooks. Apple is doing better with their Macbook Airs in this department than the PC makers, but I still want a laptop that lasts all day.
Agreed
Boring chunks of aluminium, MB-Air clone number #21425,
skinny and flat as an anorexic top model.
No, thanks.
I want many connectors and removable parts (ram, HDD…) . I could even like a computer where the (replaceable) AC power supply is integrated.
Some crapwares like evaluation versions of antiviruses are said to be “sponsored” by their providers and actually reduce the price of the windows licence.
Real innovation is to just sell computers without any installed OS and eventually sell separately “real” installation media (CD, USB device…)
Sadly you can blame what has been labeled “cargo cult usability” and the fact that Apple and their “Art of design” has been such a huge hit.
Just like the cargo cults simply mimicked the most obvious features of an airbase without knowing the reasoning behind it and thought that it would work, these companies are taking the most obvious part of Apple design, the “thin and sleek look” and copying it hoping like the cults to replicate success.
Personally i’m with you, I’d rather have longer battery life which is why i went an got a EEE AMD netbook, as while its not as thin and sleek as the new machines it gets around 6 hours for me playing 720p video, longer for surfing, and a third party battery can get that up to closer to 12 if i need the extra time. But it looks like sadly we are in the minority as people keep buying these thinner devices, it doesn’t help that many like my cousins have already been trained to carry a charger with them everywhere because of how quickly you can drain these devices, they just go from outlet to outlet as if that should just be expected, never questioning it.
You got it all wrong. These things are not for using on-the-go, they are for showing off in the nearest coffee-shop.
Edited 2012-06-16 14:09 UTC
I love that the matte screens are doing a comeback. It was certainly due. (i can hardly see properly on my glossy screen when i sit out on the balcony in the sun. A problem i never had with good matte screens.)
Just to let you know that the Dell XPS 17 (L702X) that I have has a matte screen. The fact hadn’t been publicized at all, which I still don’t understand. I can’t tell you how pleased I was when I first opened the lid and realized the laptop had a matte screen! I also realized that the argument/pretext about better colors on glossy screens is pure BS.
Barring the lousy non-backlit keyboard, this computer is the best I’ve ever had and the matte screen contributes much to that impression of mine.
All that beautiful design for the AiOs … and they saddle them with a hokey laptop keyboard.
with their tablet, it is a peace of crap with lousy support and buggy software. i will never buy anything from them again.
Doesn’t Win7 alone take up like 10 gigs?
Holy ~!@#$ someone actually selling computers without glossy screens! I know where I am going to purchase my next computer. Thanks!
Lenovo does the same – though sadly, their screens are otherwise a bit unimpressive. (My T410 is a great laptop, but the screen is mediocre at best. At least it’s not glossy.)
The X220 has an IPS panel option, and it looks great. No idea if they offer it on their other models, and if not, why they restricted it to the X220… My old T61 didn’t have a great screen IIRC.
I wonder if this Vizio company will have a presence in Europe.
As I wrote in another comment on this article, some Dell laptops have matte screens but Dell doesn’t advertise that feature, which is a mistake IMO. Mine is a full hd on a 17″ laptop with high-luminosity, wide viewing angles and bright colors. Some people have the 3D version of the screen.
Dell makes an All-In-One that completes with Apple’s
Dell XPS One 27
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404922,00.asp
I think Thom was trying to say that the styling and the bloatware prevent them from being alternatives ( in his opinion) to Apple’s products.
Of course. It doesn’t have the same cultural inertia that the others do, it doesn’t have the size the others do, and it has the luxury of enter PCs as a side business. The others need massive volume to pay the bills, and massive volume lends itself best to boring bland designs.
The question, in my mind, is how is the support experience, and what kind of value does Vizio bring to the table that the others don’t?
Lenovo inherited the excellent support tools from IBM, and ThinkPads are built like tanks. Their update tool is second to none. The others have tools that are supposed to work like that, but really, they’re useless.
Dell is the most end user focused and has excellent support. Their support is the least antagonistic of the big three. Dell Diagnostics actually works well, but the rest of their tools don’t work that well.
I’m not sure what value HP brings to the table. Their computers are cheap, and their support is awful.
I don’t see the point of an AIO without a numeric keypad. Am I the only one to be baffled with that?
Edited 2012-06-16 18:12 UTC
Unfortunatelty, it’s not only crapware/trialware that slows down a PC. It’s also the fact the installation image is “automatically generated from a database”, whatever this means. This is the reason the update to SP3 failed for some XP machines back then (OEMs used the same image for Intel and AMD laptops) and probably the reason my mom’s HP came with a fragmented HDD out of the box (took 1,5 hours to defrag). Or why my old compaq nx9420 boots faster with 7 than the OEM-installed XP.
Normally OEMs should install the OS by hand in the first sample of a particular model, and make the image from that. Not generate it automatically. So let’s see how Vizio does woth that and what the boot times of their PCs will be before we rejoice.
um, they look pretty crap like my imac
So they are the number one TV-maker in the US as the article claims ?
I’m over in Europe and I’ve never even heared of them.
I thought it was mostly a global market by now…