I remember when Vizio brand televisions started showing up in the early 2000’s. A close friend of mine purchased a Vizio TV from Wal-Mart. I hadn’t heard of this brand before, but it was the biggest TV that any of us had own up to that point (This was back in highschool).
In the following decades, Vizio has made more and more of a name for themselves, but they still sit below some of the higher-tier electronics and TV companies in the minds of many consumers. Is this a fair assessment, are Vizio just “okay”, or are they an underrated brand that you should strongly consider?
Is Vizio a Good Brand?
Yes, Vizio is a good brand. They offer solid value to their customers at a good price for the specs you’ll get. They may not be a top-tier brand, but they certainly have a place in the market.
If you’re looking for an affordable television and you don’t want to make too many sacrifices in terms of size or specifications or input/output ports, in other words if you want to get all of the features of a more expensive TV without paying as much, then Vizio can be a great choice.
It’s not all sunshine and roses with Vizio, unfortunately. There are some downsides to this brand, and certain issues that could be a bit more common than they would be with higher-tier TV makers.
Having said that, Vizio also has a lot going for them.
In the name of fairness, let’s go over some of the pros and cons of Vizio that help deternime if Vizio is a good brand or not. I think they’re a good brand, but everyone has different criteria and different things that matter to them, so let’s lay it all out and you can decide for yourself.
The Vizio Brand: Pros and Cons
To help answer the question “is Vizio a good brand?”, we’re going to go over some pros and cons about Vizio based on experiences of their customers, market perceptions, personal experience, professional opinions, and user feedback.
Pros of Vizio Products
The pros of products from the Vizio brand are as follows:
- Affordable: Vizio products are affordable. As far as TV’s go, they’re not necessarily the cheapest brand in the world but they’re certainly better than plenty of other brands that cost roughly the same amount. So, they’re a step above the most entry-level and cheapest brands out there, which is always a plus.
- Test of time: There was a point when this was a brand new, unproven company to buy a TV from. Now that they’ve been around for more than 20 decades, Vizio is still a very young brand compared to competitors like Sony, Samsung, and Sharp – but they’ve managed to last a lot longer than most start-up electronics brands, so that says something. While Vizio hasn’t stood the test of time as long as others quite yet, they’re still in a much better spot in terms of staying power than they were a decade or two ago, so that counts for something.
- Great interface: Vizio has a great user-interface for their televisions. Navigating and finding the settings and options you need is very straightforward. This is one area where a younger brand can be more nimble. For a company like Sony to make changes to their interfaces, there are a lot of different departments and moving parts that need to collaborate and iron things out, whereas for a smaller brand like Vizio, they don’t need to take as much into consideration such as compatibility or consistent style with 100 different products.
- Great options: Vizio sells enough different TV’s at different price points that you can find excellent, large TV’s at low prices or you can spend a bit more and get state-of-the-art features that you would find on much more expensive TV’s from other brands.
- Quality picture: The picture quality, arguably one of the most important aspects of a TV (but don’t underrate sound quality) is very strong in Vizio’s lineup of televisions. They use a lot of the same parts as their higher-priced competitors, so you won’t have to sacrifice picture quality by getting a Vizio.
- Modern features: Believe it or not, there was a time when every new TV wasn’t a Smart TV, didn’t have its own operating system, and couldn’t even connect to the internet. Vizio is right up there in terms of smart TV features, they get a lot of credit in reviews and from their customers for this in particular.
Cons of Vizio Products
I want to be well-rounded in this article, so let’s go over some of the less positive aspects of the Vizio brand, and some criticisms people have had over the years:
- Cheaper models aren’t always rock-solid: Customers have had concerns with the build quality in some of Vizio’s cheaper TV’s. The way to avoid this is to buy a higher-end Vizio TV, but that’s not to make excuses. This usually comes down to cost-cutting for things like Vizio TV stands feeling flimsy, their remote controls feeling a bit cheap, and stuff like that. It’s not a dealbreaker, and overall their products are good, but if you’re buying one of their cheapest TV’s, just make sure you’re okay with the build quality and feel. If you use a mount and a different remote, you’re golden.
- Customer support: It’s always a dice-roll when you reahc out to a company for customer support, but some brands tend to perform better than others. Customer support feels like it’s taken a big hit across nearly every brand over the last couple of years due to staffing shortages and cost-cutting, but even before that, some Vizio customers were left wanting more after trying to reach out for support. Vizio does have support, but sometimes it can seem like it takes a while to get a response or to get things sorted out. Most people will ever need to contact customer support, and most people who do reach out to support will end up getting things worked out, and your experience will vary – but we encourage Vizio to do their best to step things up in this category.
- Not always available locally: Vizio is popular in America and in Canada, but they haven’t fully expanded to other regions the way that larger TV brands have. So, in many parts of the world, you may have a harder time finding a Vizio TV. If you do manage to track one down, you might have a harder time dealing with support, sending it in for repairs, and so on. Vizio is good, but they’re not really good enough to bother importing if you can’t buy them in your country – you’re better off finding a brand locally, all things considered.
With all of the various Vizio pros and Vizio cons in mind…
Here’s Why People Choose Vizio
Vizio is obviously doing a lot of things right because they’ve come from being a completely unknown brand to being a recognizable TV maker.
While some users have had less-than-perfect experiences due to Vizio’s limited customer support, the product not lasting as long as they had hoped, or a lack of software updates, there’s still enough in the pro column that it often ends up being well worth the money you end up saving by going with Vizio.
Is Vizio a Good Brand? Here’s The Summary…
Vizio is a good brand.
- They make affordable, decent quality TV’s.
- They aren’t the best TV brand, and they aren’t the worst.
- In terms of value, you get a lot for your money.
- They have a wide range of products to fit smaller and larger budgets, and you’ll always get more than you pay for.
The Bottom Line: Vizio is a Good Brand!
If you’re looking for a solid TV that’ll last you for years to come, where you can get better specs and features for your money, and you don’t care about having the absolute best-of-the-best, then you really can’t go wrong with Vizio. It’s good, it’s solid, you’ll be happy with it. For anyone out there wondering is Vizio a good brand, the answer is yes.
