While filling up on my five-hours-per-day tube habit, I spotted a commercial that utterly shocked me. This ad wasn’t particularly gory or raunchy — it was the advertiser that caught me off-guard. Vizio, one of those off-brand flat screen TV-makers whose native habitat is in the aisles of Sam’s Club and Costco, was actually advertising on TV. From everything I’ve seen, the picture quality on a Vizio, while maybe not as sharp as a Panasonic, is good enough that the average person wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. And its prices are certainly cut-rate — something consumers have apparently responded to, as the upstart company is now one of the top ten TV sellers in North America. Not bad for a company that didn’t exist five years ago. So are LG and Sharp freaking out? Do companies like Vizio, Maxent, and Sceptre have the big guys running scared? Hardly. In fact, these upstarts could turn into the best thing to happen to the mega-manufacturers since cable. → Read More