My review/opinions about the Hudl 2

[Guest SqueakyG]

So I just had to get a Tesco Hudl 2 at the price, to see if it could be a bigger-screen replacement for the Nexus 7. I was curious to see what you could get for £130 (almost as an act of rebellion when I saw how much Google want for the Nexus 9). Unfortunately this post is going to look like a long list of negatives. I don't hate the thing -- it's very impressive for the price -- but you know how it goes at this quality level: the failings keep adding up.

 

 

Positives:

 

- A good solid KitKat experience for £130.

- MicroSD support (although there are issues...)

- Performance is more than acceptable for this price range, with less Intel/x86 incompatibilities than people feared.

- Filled with useful apps if you're a Tesco shopper.

 

 

 

Negatives:

 

- It's heavy! 410g is a bit too heavy for the size, and that's not great for reading ebooks for long periods.

 

- The screen is very yellow. I prefer a warm screen to a cool screen, but this is much too yellow, with creamy whites and unnatural colours. It's also duller than most screens and you have to crank up the brightness, yet its lowest brightness isn't as low as other screens go -- again bad for e-reading.

 

- "16GB" is really 9.12GB. You'd expect at least 12GB, so where on earth did those gigs go? The ROM can't be that bloated. At least there's MicroSD support...

 

- Except the MicroSD seems blocked for anything other than reading media. There are no "Move to MicroSD" options for apps, and there are some instabilities: the emulator Retroarch crashes if I try to play game roms from the MicroSD.

 

- Battery life is poor. I would say 6 hours of screen-on time in airplane mode, 5 hours of screen-on time with wi-fi. It will also lose up to 10% charge overnight. Now we know the battery is 5710mAh, why is it performing so poorly? The Hudl 2 gets hot at the rear... I'd almost forgotten that phones and tablets used to get hot. Perhaps its the x86 Intel Atom processor not being energy efficient.

 

- Cameras are completely useless, but that's to be expected. Nice to see Photosphere and Panorama available, which means there's a gyroscope... but with such awful cameras it doesn't matter.

 

 

Conclusion:

 

The Tesco Hudl 2 isn't really for me -- it's meant for parents who shop in Tesco and decide to buy their first family tablet because the kids have been nagging them for one. So unfortunately, my experiment to see if I could enjoy an 8.3-inch Android tablet that costs £130 has ended in failure. I can't enjoy it much. I'd personally need to pay more for something with higher quality.

Edited October 27, 2014 by SqueakyG

[Guest Matthew Watson]

>There are no "Move to MicroSD" options for apps

 

That's a KitKat limitation.

[Guest SqueakyG]

>There are no "Move to MicroSD" options for apps

 

That's a KitKat limitation.

 

Oh. My Moto G 2014 has full read/write access to the MicroSD and can move apps. Is that something unique to Motorola? I thought what they put on their phones was very near stock Android.

[Guest state-it]

 

 

>There are no "Move to MicroSD" options for apps

 

Stopped with 4.0 - Ice Cream Sandwich. Even if your Nexus 7 had an SD card, you wouldn't be able to move apps to it anyway without rooting.

Edited October 27, 2014 by state-it

[Guest]

Each to their own really, sorry it doesn't do it for you, looks like you'll be spending that £319 on a 16GB or will it be £399 on the 32GB version nexus 9? Could I personally justify that sort of cost for a tablet - not really.

 

As a cheap tablet with a FHD display resolution, microSD slot for 'data' storage, upgraded wifi, sound, GPS sensitivity, screen touch responsiveness, slimmer case, etc, etc, etc and a virtually vanilla KitKat 4.4.2 android experenice once you change the launcher - it's a great upgrade for anyone who likes (or loved) the original hudl.

 

The original hudl sales figures are now north of 500K for a mainly UK only sold tablet - who knows how many hudl2's are going to disapear off the shelves in the run-up to and post Christmas period?

 

Whether the hudl2 is great or pants it all depends on your expectations and intended use.  :ninja:

[Guest horizon21]

I've been quite happy with that tablet. I don't see any love for these monster speakers - I did not expect them to be so loud and crisp - perfect for watching movies!

[Guest yves1]

The OP's review seems fair.  The size of the battery at 5.7ah seems right for this size of tablet so the poor battery life is likely to be due to an inefficient Intel processor or non-optimised software.  Lets hope its only a software issue as that could be fixed on an update.

 

I am thinking that this tablet would be a good first tablet for my 5 year old nephew because its cheap (he breaks things) and has parental controls but I may get the Nexus 9 for myself.

[Guest tcpaulh]

- The screen is very yellow. I prefer a warm screen to a cool screen, but this is much too yellow, with creamy whites and unnatural colours. It's also duller than most screens and you have to crank up the brightness, yet its lowest brightness isn't as low as other screens go -- again bad for e-reading.

 

Agreed