The Android-running Vizio VIA Phone and Vizio VIA Tablet are also your remote control

Just as promised, America's favorite value-for-money TV manufacturer Vizio is here with its own Android smartphone and tablet. Called simply the Vizio VIA Phone and Vizio VIA Tablet, they are part of the Vizio Internet Apps (VIA) Plus ecosystem, where the company's web-centric products and applications meet, hence the VIA insert in the names.

The Vizio VIA Phone has a 4" LCD screen with 480x854 pixels of resolution (take that, majority of high-end phones with 480x800 pixels). The chipset is a modern 1GHz of undisclosed make, and there is a 5MP camera with LED flash, 2GB storage, DLNA, as well as an HDMI port. The Vizio VIA Tablet sports an 8" display, the same 1GHz processor, high-res frontal camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, HDMI port, DLNA, and the stingy 2GB of app storage. What separates it from the pack are three speakers for stereo audio in both portrait and landscape mode, finally this issue is solved.

Both the tablet and the Vizio Phone feature an IR blaster, which allows them to control each other, to send commands to Vizio's TV lineup or your home theater, and, basically, to everything that doesn't move, and has an infrared port with the preinstalled application. The icing on the cake is that Vizio has skinned the stock Android UI rather tastefully with its own custom overlay, so we can't wait to get our hands on the two gizmos, and try them out at CES.

No carrier partnerships are announced yet for Vizio's phone and tablet, but knowing the company, they should be arriving on networks at prices that can make you jump for joy.

source: Vizio