The Vizio Tablet: At $300, this device escapes the iPad's shadow and serves its own market

At just $300, The Vizio Tablet is one of the cheapest around.

The 8-inch, wifi-enabled touchscreen device has just 4 GB of memory (but up to 32 GB can be added) and a mediocre processor (just a single core), and it doesn't run Android 3.0, just 2.3.

Drawbacks aside, this casual tablet sports solid value for the price with a few extra perks: an intelligent sound system that blasts sound out of select speakers based on the the device's orientation, and a built-in IR controller that transforms the viseo into a universal remote control for your home theatre.

At just $50 more than some of the fancier e-readers out there, the Vizio has carved out a good space in the marketplace—a place that I felt Android and webOS should have gone a lot earlier. After all, it's been proving millions of times that if someone is going to spend $500 or more on a tablet, it's going to be an iPad nearly every single time.