Early this morning, Vizio kicked their CES off with a bang by announcing a handful of new products – a 10″ tablet powered by the newly announced Tegra 4, a 7″ tablet powered by a Tegra 3, a phone with a 5″ 1080p display, and another with a 4.7″ 720p display. The phones will head to China and may never arrive here, but the tablets certainly have a chance at landing on your coffee table. 

Today, Google has announced through their official Google TV blog that we have lots to look forward to next week at CES. According to the post, we will be seeing the future of the platform, as it will be presented through new hardware from various partners such as ASUS, Sony, LG, Vizio, and more. 

Vizio’s new Co-Star box has hit their website for pre-order. The price tag is only $99 and for anyone looking into Google TV, that’s not a bad price. Google TV can turn any TV in your home into a smart TV by bringing tons of applications and the full Chrome browser right to your living room. Another sweet little addition to the box is the hybrid remote that comes with the package. It features a full keyboard on the backside, while having all of your remote needs on the front. Much more compact than what came with the Logitech Revue. 

Who said Google TV was a dead platform? After launching a major Honeycomb update a few months back, Google is ready to re-launch its TV product again this year at CES by adding on a handful of new and important partners. With more than 150 specific TV apps already available and improvements happening all the time, companies like Samsung, LG and Vizio have jumped on board and will start releasing Google TV products in 2012. Many of them will also have products on display next week at CES, a boost the platform is desperately in need of.

Here is what you can expect to see from these new partners next week and throughout the year:

• LG – We’re thrilled to welcome global consumer electronics leader LG to the Google TV family. LG will showcase a new line of TVs powered by Google TV running on their own L9 chipset at CES.

• Marvell – Also new to the Google TV family this year is Marvell, an innovative worldwide leader in chipsets. Marvell will be showcasing a new generation of Google TV solutions which will help bring more products across more price points to consumers.

• MediaTek – We’re also excited to partner with MediaTek, the leading Taiwanese chipset designer. MediaTek chipsets will power yet another wave of Google TV devices.

• Samsung – We’re excited to work closely with Samsung to bring Google-TV powered Samsung devices to market in 2012.

• Sony – We’re happy to build on our partnership with Sony. At CES, Sony will unveil new devices for the US and plans to offer Google TV powered products in several countries around the world in 2012.

• Vizio – Last year we announced our partnership with Vizio at CES. This year we’re excited to join Vizio as they hold private demos at CES showcasing their new line of Google TV-powered products.

Can Google TV make it this time around? With big time partners like these, I’d say they stand a chance.

Via:  Google TV Blog

We initially passed on posting the news of Vizio’s new Android tablet that was introduced last week because the UI looked pretty unfinished, it wasn’t running Honeycomb and there was enough lag while scrolling through menus to give us an instant headache.  But now, thanks to a DL reader, we can see that production models of the device can easily be rooted using one of our old friends, GingerBreak.  Talk about a great way to put life into a device that so far had sort of underwhelmed most Android enthusiasts.  I would guess that with root, its $349 price tag, and plans to get it upgraded to Honeycomb shortly after launch, this might be worth a look after all.

And in case you missed the random promotional video of Blake Griffin with his paws all over this laggy little machine, we’ve dropped it below.