It’s no secret that this year’s Consumer Electronics Show will be rife with new Android tablets, with PC makers Lenovo and Toshiba among the latest to throw their hats into the tablet ring. But the news that TV manufacturer Vizio is boldly jumping into the Android tablet fray comes as something of a surprise.

Vizio’s upcoming tablet made its first appearance over the weekend during the Rose Bowl (which it just happened to be sponsoring), with the Wall Street Journal following up with a few more details on the eight-inch device.

The Via Tablet, as it’ll be called (no pricing or release dates quite yet), will boast a “high-resolution” display, the Journal promises, as well as Wi-Fi (one would hope), a front-facing camera for video chat, and a trio of speakers.

The tablet will also come with an HDMI video output, as well as Vizio’s new Via Plus interface, which offers access to Netflix streaming videos among other Net-friendly features, according to the Journal.

We should also expect to see the Via Plus UI incorporated into Vizio’s upcoming HDTVs, which (naturally enough) you’ll be able to control with the Via Tablet.

The Via Tablet will be Android-powered, the Journal piece notes, although it’s not clear whether it’ll run on Honeycomb, the upcoming version of the Android OS designed specifically for tablet devices.

Vizio will also have the Via Phone, a four-inch Android handset with dual cameras, including a front-facing lens for video chat and a 5MP rear snapper that shoots video.

Meanwhile, Toshiba is reportedly teeing up an Android tablet of its own, complete with a dual-core Tegra 2 processor purring under the hood, according to Engadget.

Slated for release in the first half of the year, the as-yet unnamed 10.1-inch tablet will arrive with a 1,280 by 800 display, dual cameras (five megapixels in back, two in front), USB and min-USB ports, an HDMI video output, and an SD card slot.

The Engadget bloggers only managed to paw a non-working version of the 1.7-pound, 0.6-inch Toshiba tablet, but they do confirm that it’ll run on Android 3.0 Honeycomb,” and that it will hit the streets with a “competitive” price tag.

Last but not least comes Lenovo, which tells PC World that it plans to announce a pair of tablets at “multiple” price points, including (perhaps) an Android-powered slate.

The coming wave of tablets will be doing battle with Motorola’s expected Tegra 2-powered Android tablet, reportedly dubbed “Xoom,” along with a flood of other Android- and Windows-based tablets from the likes of HP, Asus, and (probably) Samsung.