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Clicky

Has any one got one of these yet?

are they out yet ? i was in tescos last week looking for them but no sign of them then

Yes they are 'out' there is a display downstairs , and what stock they had left was in the room behind the upstairs till,s.,< a fortnight ago to-day > they are getting more stock this week , most are pre-ordered , one of my daughters bought two on 'launch day ' for Christmas presents for grandson,s, got one coming by courier for my 21 year old. <at the Bidston Moss one they sold 100 in first few days> Will give feedback when we are up and running..

The good
The Tesco tablet is surprisingly solidly made. Despite the low £119 price-tag, Tesco has managed to stuff its first effort with some top-notch hardware under the hood and still find budget for a pleasing design. First up is the high resolution screen which comes with a 1440 x 900 HD resolution that looks pin-sharp, with great viewing angles. While it doesn't compare with the stunnung 1920×1200, 323ppi display that Google’s latest Nexus 7 is packing, for the low price that Tesco has set, it certainly comes close. Software-wise, it’s a fairly bare bones installation of Android 4.2.2, with only has a few minor Tesco additions. The Hudl’s 1.5GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM keep things humming along, and it’s only when you’re really taxing it with updates, downloads and everything in-between that you’ll notice any slow down. It’s speedy for all your basic tasks, but it might buckle in some intense situations or the odd 3D game.

When you first get your hands on the Hudl, you’ll find that it’s made of a hard plastic that’s soft to touch and is quite grippy, but also pretty weighty and rigid. It comes in black, blue purple or red flavours, and you’ll also find a matching micro USB cable in the box, along with a mains charger that looks a lot better than any bargain bin chargers you might encounter on eBay. Ours came in the burning bright red hue, complete with a matching hard-case that’s available separately for £15, and it makes for an attractive and protective combination. On the back, you’ll find a pair of speakers for stereo sound, while you can also plug in your own headphones via the jack. Tesco rates its Hudl for nine hours of battery life, and we managed to squeeze out around the same amount in practice.

There’s no doubt the Tesco Hudl is going to be compared to the Nexus 7, thanks to their relatively low prices, but Tesco’s take actually has a few of its own tricks to bring to the table. Unlike the Nexus 7, the Hudl comes complete with a micro SD slot, letting you expand the onboard 16GB of storage with a 32GB microSD card, bumping it up to a maximum of 48GB, plus there’s also a micro-HDMI port too. That means you’ll be able to hook up your tablet to your telly and watch movies and videos stored on your tablet, or beam down clips from the likes of YouTube, Netflix or Tesco’s very own Blinkbox, which is pre-loaded on the Hudl.

The bad
Despite its rugged, weighty, hard plastic construction, I can’t help but feel it’s just too plasticy. It’s not the premium polycarbonate that you’d find on Nokia's finest Lumia devices, or with Apple’s iPhone 5c, instead, it’s a rather cheap feeling material that feels rough to touch after extended periods of time. We’re also not too fond of the landscape orientation that seems to be favoured by the Hudl, evidenced by the location of its buttons and cameras, and we found ourselves scrambling to find the on/off button at times. Speaking of the cameras, simply put, they’re atrocious. The front-camera will make do for Skype video chats, but the rear 3.2-megapixel snapper takes muddy photos and doesn’t fare any better when it comes to shooting video.

When you’re first greeted with the Hudl’s home screen, you’ll find that Tesco has pre-loaded it with widgets advertising its Blinkbox video and radio services, shopping tools, a Clubard widget and more, but you can get rid of them easily. It’s the unremovable Tesco T logo at the bottom left hand corner of the display that grates though: you can't get rid of it. Tapping it, no matter what app you’re in, and even by accident, will send you to the Tesco hub, which gives you quick access to many of the company’s guides, app shortcuts and even a store locator. Useful if you’re very tied into the Tesco ecosystem, not so much if you’re not - and the location the button is positioned in makes it suspiciously easy to hit by accident.

I also had a few problems with the Wi-Fi reception on the tablet, as we found it would constantly drop even when similar gizmos right next to it were picking up a strong signal. That has a knock on effect on the battery, as the Hudl would constantly be hunting around for a network to connect to, but once we brought it closer to our router, the slate beamed down data from the web happily. It might be worth noting the Hudl’s Wi-Fi range, especially if your house is pretty big, or your living room on another storey to your router.

We compared it to a previous generation Nexus 7 - about as close to it in price.

Real world speed - there was very little to split them apart.

Screen wise - the Hudl looked to my eyes a little sharper.

Weight wise about the same.

Dimensions -you what you loose in length you gain in width (Hudl).

Build quality - Has already been dropped twice already and its still alive, perhaps yeah not as tactile as the nexus, but I always put em in a case any-ways!

Cost - You can double up on your vouchers too and make it uber cheap, I very seldom shop in Tesco's now so I only had 20 quid off.

As for the Tesco branding, you can root and remove if you wish, the process doesn't look too involved - however I don't find it too obtrusive so I'll leave it for now..

In short - definitely worth it, if your concerned about durability put it in a case - but that goes without saying!!

Matt

More Hudl
Maybe we need a "Hudl Help" thread - or does nobody else have problems?

I received my Hudl 2 days ago.

Screen - impressive

Build (so far as I can tell) - good. Not 'plastic-like, even though first impression from photos seemed to indicate it should have Toys R Us logo

Wi-Fi range - covers all my house from ancient old Belkin router

Battery - does give at least 8 hours

Problems

(a) lack of any literature.
Yes, I know working these things is supposed to be intuitive but I AM OLD and I like to read instructions books (usually). I guess if a user had previous experience of a modern Android phone etc then it would all be easy-peasy. My phone is steam driven so no help there.

(b) NO Tesco Help-line/ technical webpage. Sure there is a general Tesco Technical help service - but have you ever tried to get through?

(c) IMPORTANT. Important because I do not know whether there is something wrong with the Hudl machine I have. The problem is that the video clips on BBC News accessed via the Google Chrome supplied DO NOT RUN. You Tube clips run fine when I access through the You Tube icon

Will anyone else who has one please respond and let me know whether they have the same problem - or is it just me. If it is just me then Tesco will get it back. If it is a generic problem then surely there must be a "fix". It is not acceptable that video clips do not run.

(d) Pain in the posterior - when typing eg in email the key presses sometimes produce "foreign" character equivalents eg grave or acute accents on letters e or a, and numbers produce fractions. Suspect this is just my blunt fingers but do not know.

Snod

Sorted the BBC video clip issue - not 100% sure HOW I sorted it, but done anyway. Basically I just reloaded the BBC News site via the Apps library

Quite pleased with the Hudle BUT I definitely need to prod the screen with something "non-finger". My fingers are too blunt. From the Pound Shop I picked up a pair of screen prod tools. One has a hard end fitting (useless) but the other has a soft rubber cushion tip that works well.

Snod

I have this problem with a lot of touch screens, they just don't register the conductivity in my skin (or I'm dead, keep meaning to check which), however the Stylus works quite well (don't use the spike end on a conductive screen, you'll just scratch it and poke big holes in it, then it won't work at all).

You can get all kinds of them, some have pens on one end, others have little plugs on a piece of string so you can put them into your earphone socket and not lose it.

A
Guy on Tranmere carboot has the pens for £1