Can Vizio outsmart the big PC makers?

Vizio has become the best-selling TV maker in the U.S., with its inexpensive HDTVs handily beating out pricier brand names. Now, the Irvine, Calif., company is gearing up to unveil its own sleek, low-priced PCs and laptops at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week. (The computers will go on sale in June.) Can Vizio dominate the PC market?

Its PCs are certainly good looking: "I don't know how these will perform," says Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo. But really, "the new Vizio PCs and notebooks look amazingly good." The sleek design is "impressively clean and cool," equal parts Jon Ive and Tony Stark. They also run a promisingly "free-of-bloatware Windows 7 version optimized by Microsoft." Apple better watch out.

"The new Vizio PCs and notebooks are worthy of Apple"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

And there's a need for them: Just as we did with the TV market, we plan to "disrupt" the PC market, Vizio's Matt McRae tells Bloomberg. We'll sell these new computers at "a price that just doesn't seem possible." The majority of PCs seem to cater to small-business users. There's an open market for PCs as entertainment devices, and we plan to take advantage of it.

"Vizio aims low-price wrecking ball at PCs after shaking up TVs"

But the PC market is already overcrowded: While it may seem logical for Vizio to make the leap from HDTVs to PCs, they're two very different industries, says Ed Oswald at BetaNews. "Budget PCs have been around for much of this decade, with already established players." Look at the market — it "is already crowded." Vizio's entrance will just "accelerate the race to the bottom," and that won't be good for anyone, Vizio included.

"Vizio aims to disrupt the crowded budget PC market, but can it?"