£129 inc VAT
Manufacturer: Tesco
By Chris Martin | PC Advisor | 03 October 14
Tesco is back with the Hudl 2 budget Android tablet which is £129. Here's out hands-on review of the Tesco Hudl 2.
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Following up on the success on its first own-brand tablet, Tesco is back with the budget Android Hudl 2. We attended the London launch for the new bargain gadget so here's our Tesco Hudl 2 hands-on review. See: The 10 best budget tablets 2014: Here are the best cheap tablets available to buy in the UK right now
Tesco Hudl 2 hands-on review: Price
Although Tesco said at the launch that the price remains the same compared to the original, the Hudl 2 is actually £10 more at £129 – we're not complaining, merely pointing it out and that price is still extremely good value for money. (The original remains on sale for £99 while stocks last).
Once again, Tesco has decided to offer the tablet with ClubCard Boost meaning every £5 worth of vouchers is £10 towards the tablet so it can be yours for as little as £65 (of vouchers). As if that didn't sound good enough already, the Hudl 2 also comes with £60 worth of vouchers in the box. Some require a minimum spend but £25 of Blinkbox credit is a nice touch.
Tesco Hudl 2 hands-on review: Design and build
The Hudl 2 has a similar but updated look and feel compared to the original. It uses the same type of plastic casing which has a nice matt finish and a rubbery grip to it. It feels nice to hold in the hand although due to being larger, is a little heavier.
Tesco has done a good job of making the Hudl 2 look more sleek and desirable. Its clean lines and rounded corners are pleasing to the eye. It has similarities with the HTC Flyer and iPhone 5c. Our one caveat is that the holes for the rear speakers aren't neatly symmetrical with one side getting cut off by the camera.
There're more colours to choose from this time round with a total of eight: blue, red, orange, white, pink, purple, turquoise and black. Additionally there are four different cases which range from £10-30 and these are also available in the same colours meaning plenty of colours combinations. Handily, the website can show you combinations before you buy.
Tesco Hudl 2 hands-on review: Hardware
As promised, Tesco has upgraded the Hudl 2 in a number of ways. The main thing for us is the screen which is the best feature of the tablet for us. It's bigger and joins the increasingly popular 8in segment. To be precise, it's 8.3in matching the LG G Pad 8.3 and uses an impressive Full HD (1920 x 1200).
The display is bright, offers good viewing angles and nice colours. With a pixel density of 272 ppi everything looks nicely crisp so we're seriously impressed when you consider the price of the Hudl 2. And that's not where the upgrades stop.
Tesco claims that the Hudl 2 is three times faster than its predecessor. This is thanks to an Intel Atom quad-core processor which clocks up to 1.83 GHz. Tesco has doubled the amount of RAM to 2 GB.
We'll benchmark the Hudl 2 when we receive our review sample but for now, the device seems nicely nippy in general use managing to play Asphalt 8 smoothly although the camera app was a bit laggy.
Speaking of cameras, Tesco has upgraded both with 5 Mp at the rear and 1.2 Mp at the front. There's still no LED flash and neither coped very well during our hands-on time at the launch event but we'll give them a second chance so check back soon when this is a full review.
There's just one model of the Hudl 2 which offers 16 GB of storage. That's not bad and if you need to add more, then you can do so via the microSD card although this only accepts up to 32 GB cards which could be higher.
As before, there are rear facing stereo speakers and there's Dolby sound to boot. They sounded reasonably good when playing Asphalt 8 in a busy environment but we'll give you a more detailed report when we test them in quieter surroundings.
The Hudl 2 has dual-band Wi-Fi, a micro-HDMI port and Tesco says that it will offer eight hours of battery life so that's another thing to check back for our tests results once we've had the tablet in the lab. That's one hour less than the Hudl 1 but this is likely down to the new screen.
Tesco Hudl 2 hands-on review: Software
Software is up-to-date with Android 4.4 KitKat and Tesco has made the wise decision of leaving the operating system mostly stock or vanilla (as Google made it).
We say mostly because Tesco does add a few bits and pieces including My Tesco (see photo in hardware section above) which is one swipe away from the main homescreen (or hit the T icon). It's a hub for all everything Tesco from grocery shopping to Blinkbox. This was on the Hudl 1 but the new version is vastly improved with a Google Now card style interface which allows you to hide or remove elements.
To help new comers, Tesco has created a Top Apps as a curated list of apps to download out-of-the box as the Google Play store is supposedly a bit daunting for some. There's also a Get Started app to help users to get to grips with the software.
Both these, as you would expect, encourage you to use Tesco's services but tou can, of course, buy the Hudl 2 without being a regular Tesco customer and simply ignore these parts of the operating system.
More handy in the long run, for some users anyway, is built-in parent controls. This app only displays in landscape, but aside from that, this helps you keep on top of what your kids can and can't see with a safe browser and the ability to black or whitelist specific sites or content. You can also set time limits for specific users to avoid them spending too long using it. Up to seven profiles can be customised in terms of age and suitability.
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