Hudl 2 best deals
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It's a useful selection of tools, and all the better for the fact that none of them are obtrusive or nagging. The only problem I have is that there's no obvious way of uninstalling any you don't want. The Hudl 2 put in a mixed performance in testing.
Tesco Hudl 2 review: an underdog tablet at a bargain cost | IT PRO
The 1, x 1,resolution screen uses IPS technology, and looks perfectly bright and colourful. Results from testing with a colorimeter largely back up that first impression. Unfortunately, closer inspection reveals that Tesco has decided to employ dynamic contrast in the Hudl 2, presumably to try and eke out better battery life.
Skin tones look realistic and believable, and as the IPS panel covers a respectable A frame rate of Battery life, however, is poor. The Hudl 2 only achieved a time of only 6hrs 51mins while looping a p video for comparison, the Nexus 7 achieved 11hrs 48mins. In standby, the level of charge falls with alarming rapidity, and it takes an age to charge as well. The less said about the 5-megapixel rear camera the better: The Tesco Hudl 2 is a great budget tablet, but before you take the plunge, it's worth considering some of its rivals.
We've summarised the best on the following page. The Hudl 2 is a great budget tablet, but it does have some rivals. Here's a quick summary of their strengths and weaknesses:. Price when reviewed: Its specs are barebones in the extreme: No, the most interesting aspect of this budget tablet is the price: Is it any good? At this price, why stop at buying just one; you might as well kit out the whole family Read the full Amazon Fire review here.
Sadly, the Nexus 9 has now gone the same way as the Tesco Hudl 2. It's been discontinued, which is a shame, because at the prices it was being sold at made it well worth considering as a Hudl 2 alternative.
Because it's fast - really fast - and runs pure Android. That means, even now, the Nexus 9 remains a joy to use. I've got on in the office and use it to test out new versions of Android all the time. Its Nvidia Tegra K1 processor ensures it's crisply responsive in all the areas that matter, and although the screen quality isn't the best, that's something I can put up with. It's sad to see it go. Read the full Nexus 9 review here. Once again, it's a smaller device than the Hudl 2, with the screen measuring 6in across the diagonal instead of 8.
And it stands up as an alternative in its own right.
It's really cheap, but it's really rather nice
Second, battery life is much, much better. In testing, the Amazon Fire HD 6 lasted 8hrs 43mins while playing a p video on loop, a full two hours longer than the Tesco Hudl 2. Couple that with Amazon's superb range of ebooks and its strong parental controls, and you have a high quality budget tablet, especially suitable as a gift for a younger child. Read the full Amazon Fire HD 6 review here. For your money, you're getting an ultra-slim tablet that weighs a mere g and measures 6. The screen is simply superb, with a resolution of 1, x 2, and incredibly vibrant colours.
The tablet also has a fingerprint reader, an infrared transmitter, plus an excellent 8-megapixel camera and a top-of-the-line octa-core Samsung Exynos processor. In short, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8. It's well worth a look. Read the original Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8. Tesco Hudl 2: Goodbye to a fantastic budget tablet. Now discontinued, the Tesco Hudl 2 was a trailblazer for high-quality, low-cost tablets.
Sound is well-balanced and highly defined.
The bezel to the left and right of the screen is much healthier, but it doesn't look bloated or out of proportion. It also features Bluetooth, naturally, but no NFC which is disappointing if not the least bit surprising. Tesco Hudl 2: Don't get me wrong, you'll still be able to frame that picture of you and your chums picnicking on your favourite London field, but glare will become a frustration if you want to polish off that e-book you've been reading on a park bench. I previously had an original Hudl as well.
And every subtle bass tone comes through perfectly, making the tablet a joy to watch a movie or listen to music on. You certainly won't be left wanting in the volume department, either. The Hudl2 runs, for the most part, a stock build of Android 4. As much as Tesco wants you to buy its hardware, the supermarket is just as keen to tie you up in its software and services. Like the first Hudl, this means there's a fair amount of Tesco-issued bloatware populating the device.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing for first-time tablet users, though, as they can do a lot with the slate right out of the box. For true beginners, there's a slick instructions app that explains how to customize the tablet, hop online, listen to music, take a picture and other basics. This is complemented by an app that lists some recommended games, streaming services, news outlets and the like to get you started. Once you're up and running, the hope is that you'll start to explore Tesco's Blinkbox video , music and e-book services.
The e-book store is, well, exactly what it sounds like, and Blinkbox music lets you stream millions of tunes bound in artist- and theme-driven "stations. Blinkbox skips the subscription model when it comes to streaming video, instead offering movies and TV box sets for purchase or rental. Recently, Tesco also started letting you link UltraViolet libraries to Blinkbox accounts , allowing you to stream the digital copies of any supported DVDs and Blu-rays you own to the Hudl2 and all other devices that have a Blinkbox app.
To tempt you onto the hook, every Hudl2 purchase includes 25 quid's worth of bait credit to spend across the three services. Only a couple have dedicated apps, but a folder on the Hudl2's home screen contains website shortcuts to anything that doesn't. Not content with simply preinstalling its apps, Tesco's also added a non-removable panel to the home screen carousel called "My Tesco.
These cards suggest content to stream, recipes to try, Hudl2 accessories to buy and highlight the top deals at Tesco's various stores. It shows you what time your nearest supermarket closes, and if you can plug in your Blinkbox, Clubcard and Groceries account details, it'll also tell you what time your online food order will be delivered, how many loyalty points you've racked up and other personalised info.
A static menu you can get to from within the "My Tesco" pane again points you in the direction of every Tesco store and service available. Really, it just collates many of the apps and shortcuts found elsewhere and presents them in a more accessible way. Tesco's custom home screen panel is more or less a dedicated advertising space, though I can see it being useful to those fully entrenched in the supermarket's retail and service ecosystem. But, if you're not at that stage, "My Tesco" is easily ignored as long as you don't touch the T button or swipe right on the home screen. The anchored home screen pane is pretty much the only visual customisation from Tesco that sits on top of stock Android.
Other than that, there are a few prepositioned widgets you can easily remove, and an overly positive default wallpaper depicting a group of friends apparently on a surfing trip in the middle of a field. Tesco's latest tablet is pitched as a device for the whole family. The original Hudl was too, but its child-safety measures amounted to an on-device guide of what settings to change, and what apps parents could use to control what their little ones were able to access.
This time around, Tesco's built a more comprehensive solution that's similar to Amazon's Kindle FreeTime feature.
Tesco Hudl 2 review
You can create individual profiles for each child in the household, and then choose what types of websites they're allowed to access from a list of categories. There's also a whitelist for each profile, so you can allow specific sites that might come under a wider category of content you'd rather your kids avoid.
You can also set weekday and weekend time limits on general usage, as well as specify what apps will show up on the device for each profile. Furthermore, there's an advice section within the child-safety app that talks about everything you should consider when letting young'uns loose on the slate. Overall, the new measures are a big improvement over the first Hudl, and for parents, it could be considered more of a selling point than a simple app. Taking pictures on tablets doesn't do anything for your street cred, but we get it: Sometimes, the Hudl2 may be the only camera-equipped device to hand.
Tesco's bumped the main camera up to five megapixels, from 3MP on the first Hudl, but curiously, it's done the opposite with the front-facing unit. What used to be a 2-megapixel shooter is now only 1. The Hudl2's camera app is extremely basic. You've only got still, video, panorama, photo sphere and lens blur modes, the latter of which can be used to inject bokeh into macro shots. The only things you can do from within the viewfinder are add a framing grid and set a countdown timer, but even in the deeper settings menu, you can only adjust the resolution and quality of images each lens spits out.
Head to the "advanced" section of this menu, and you'll find an option to add a manual exposure setting to the viewfinder -- everything else is taken care of automatically. I don't consider this a negative, though, because who really wants to faff around with white balance and scene-selection settings when you're simply trying to grab an opportunistic shot on your tablet? Camera performance on the first Hudl was thoroughly disappointing, but the Hudl2 demonstrates some notable improvements. Firstly, image quality is better by default thanks to the higher resolution.
Beyond that, though, colours are way more vibrant and realistic in scenarios where natural light is on your side. Shutter speed and response times are pretty good, too. Some photos still come out a little overexposed and washed out, and the auto-white balance setting isn't always accurate especially when shooting landscapes , but more often than not, you'll be happy with the output.
The main camera doesn't fare so well with artificial lighting. Images tend to be either extremely washed out, or take on the general hue of whatever bulb's illuminating the scene. In twilight, the camera simply jacks the exposure setting up to its maximum, resulting in horribly pale images. In much darker situations, however, you get a more realistic image even if it is on the grainy side.
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At this light level, though, the shutter speed has dropped so low you need to hold the tablet steady for well over a second to achieve anything but a blurry mess. I don't have a great deal of positive things to say about the Hudl2's 1. On a bright, sunny day, it'll take a perfectly good selfie, but stray from those ideal conditions and image noise starts to become a real issue. This is particularly true in low-light situations, where banding noise turns photos into streaky mosaics.
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The front-facing shooter is capable of recording p video, while the main camera can capture clips at p. Don't let the resolutions fool you, though, as they're not particularly handy in this department. The front-facer has the same problems with video as it does with stills, and the primary camera doesn't do a markedly better job. The quality of recorded audio is quite simply terrible, with ill-defined sound all but hidden under the loud hiss of static. Full-resolution camera sample images can be found here.
A more sophisticated design and a bigger, better display aren't the only enhancements Tesco's bestowed upon its second-generation tablet. The Hudl2 also has a faster quad-core 1. It also has the same 16GB of internal storage as the first Hudl, with a microSD card slot allowing you to add more.
Tesco says the slate is compatible with cards as large as 32GB, but then again, it said the same about the original Hudl, yet that handled a 64GB card without issue. Sadly, I don't have anything of that size on hand to test whether the Hudl2 is capable of the same overachievement. The Hudl2 has all the processing power it needs to deal with typical tablet use cases effortlessly.
I'm talking about cycling through the app drawer, jumping into Gmail, browsing YouTube -- that sort of thing. It's generally a slick and responsive affair, though I did notice a few infrequent hiccups. Occasionally, the on-screen keyboard would take a split second longer to appear than normal, for example, or the tablet would hang briefly when switching from the lockscreen to the home screen.
These minor indiscretions have practically no impact on the general user experience, though. On a related note, the transition from the normal home screen to the immovable "My Tesco" pane isn't a particularly smooth one. It stutters across to fill the screen, but I'm certain this is down to poor optimisation on Tesco's part, rather than any fault of the hardware. Browsing the web on the Hudl2 is a great experience, making it a perfect couch-surfing companion. Sites load quickly on the device using the Chrome browser , and I haven't noticed any scroll lag, tiling or other performance issues of that nature.
I wasn't sure the Intel Atom chip would deal with processor-intensive tasks as well, but my reservations were unfounded. The 3D games Real Racing 3 and Shadowgun: Deadzone run fantastically, and Asphalt 8: Airborne only starts dropping frames when pushed to the highest graphics setting it's fine on the recommended medium setting. When running power-hungry apps, the tablet does have a tendency to heat up around the primary camera lens, so prepare for your left palm to get sweaty during extended gaming sessions. The Hudl2's connectivity options aren't exhaustive, but it's got everything a regular punter will need: For whatever reason, Tesco doesn't specify the actual capacity of the batteries in either of its tablets.
The Hudl2 is said to be good for up to eight hours of use, but in the standard Engadget video-looping test, it only managed six and a half before giving up the ghost. The original Hudl which Tesco claimed had a nine-hour battery life didn't do too much better, clocking in a time of just over seven hours. Neither result is particularly impressive, but several, admittedly older, Android tablets have put in comparable performances. Under normal usage conditions at medium screen brightness, you can expect to get roughly six hours of Hudl2 time before needing to recharge.
Run a lot of processor-intensive apps and games, however, and you're looking at more like four hours. The Hudl2's battery life is definitely one of its weakest points, and you wouldn't want the tablet as your sole source of entertainment on a long-haul flight. That being said, if it's going to spend most of its life on the living room coffee table, I doubt you'll find plugging it in every other evening a huge inconvenience. If it's something a little more affordable you're after, however, then your options start to become more limited.
The extra tenner you pay for the Hudl2 is certainly worth it, though, as Tesco's tablet is simply better in every respect -- barring, perhaps, battery life. It has a bigger, higher-resolution display, better cameras and a faster processor, not to mention it has a more open Android OS built with access to the Google Play store. A couple of UK carriers have recently added new, low-cost tablets to their device repertoires.
Obviously, these slates have LTE connectivity, which isn't something you can say about the Hudl2. Tesco's tab trumps both when it comes to raw specs, though, making it the more sensible purchase if having internet access on the move isn't your top priority. If you're not much of a tablet gamer, and simply want a device to do the basics on, like web browsing and the odd email, then picking up a first-generation Hudl might be the way to go. Amazon's newer Fire HD 6 tablet 8GB model retails for the same price, though, and may be the preferred option if you'd be content with Fire OS and want a slate with long battery life.
Both of the supermarket's tablets are eligible for "Clubcard Boost," which means your loyalty points are worth double their normal amount when put toward a purchase of either slate. Tesco's in a rather unique position -- it's a brand trusted for providing millions of Brits with the everyday essentials, meaning it has a huge captive audience to sell the Hudl2 and its digital services to.