Vizio tablet now coming July 18th

First revealed at CES 2011, Vizio is now officially taking pre-orders for its first tablet device with an expected ship date of July 18^th.

The 8-inch Vizio tablet is currently priced at $399, which is $50 more than the rumored Wal-Mart price leak reported a couple weeks ago. Still, at $400, the Vizio tablet is nonetheless more attractive than other competing tablets from major brands. Without the included Wi-Fi bundle, the tablet comes in at $379 instead.

The official specs include a capacitive 1024x768 resolution screen, SRS TruMedia with 3x stereo speakers, 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM and a 4GB SDD. Expansion and multimedia ports comprise of a front-facing camera, micro HDMI port, micro USB port, a micro SD slot w/ an included 16GB card, GPS, Bluetooth and an IR blaster for universal remote functionality. The preloaded universal remote app will supposedly be compatible with 95% of U.S. consumer electronics currently in the market. Battery life is expected to last up to 10 hours under normal use. Judging from the specs, Vizio seems focused on fusing the tablet with the user’s already existing home entertainment system.

A noteworthy mention is its operating system, which will utilize Google Gingerbread. A Honeycomb update in the future is possible, but buyers will have to make do with Android 2.3 for now.

As mentioned earlier, the tablet is now available for pre-order through Vizio’s official online store for $399. A tablet folio case will be included with every purchase.

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