Tesco Hudl 2 review

The original Tesco Hudl was, if not a revelation, at least a surprise. Just as we were getting used to applying the "if it's cheaper than a Nexus 7, it's rubbish" rule, Tesco defied us by bringing a £120 tablet to market which outperformed everything else in its price range. Here we are one year later and Tesco has a new Hudl: the Hudl2. The new tablet is bigger, faster, has a higher-resolution screen and is, if anything, even more of a bargain than its predecessor.

The first thing you notice is the new tablet's size. The Hudl 2 is an 8in tablet compared to the 7in of its predecessor. We’re seeing an increasing number of 8in tablets, which we think are the best compromise between overall tablet size and having a screen big enough to do most of the things you would on your laptop.

Tesco Hudl 2 screen

The new Hudl's 8in display has a 1,920x1,200 resolution, the same as rivals such as the 7in Google Nexus 7 and 8in Dell Venue 8 Android. Considering the tablet's price, it's an excellent screen. In our tests with a colour calibrator the Hudl 2 could cover 83.4% of the sRGB colour gamut and had a contrast ratio of 1,026:1; this compares favourably with the £200 Dell Venue 8 Android's 75.4% and 1,069:1.

The Hudl 2's screen appears sharp and detailed with clean whites, and makes it feel like a much more expensive tablet. When we compared the Hudl 2 side-by-side with the Google Nexus 7, the Nexus 7 had wider viewing angles – the Hudl 2's display dims visibly when you view it off-centre – and some finer detail in photos, but there wasn't a huge amount in it. Considering that 8in tablets at this price, such as the excellent Asus MemoPad 7, tend not to have Full HD screens at all, the Hudl 2's display gives us no real cause for complaint.

Tesco Hudl 2 build quality

The Hudl 2's chassis is another area where it punches above its price. The tablet is just lovely to hold, with soft-touch plastic wrapping round the rear and sides. The slim bezels at the top and bottom of the screen are offset by chunkier ones at the sides, but we think these help give the Hudl 2 a balanced look (and give you somewhere to rest your thumbs when holding the tablet in landscape mode). Around the edges you'll find a microSD card slot, which you'll probably need as the tablet only has around 9GB of its 16GB storage left out of the box, and a Micro HDMI port to plug it into your TV. Tesco made a fairly big fuss about the tablet's stereo speakers and, while they had a fair amount of stereo separation and were fine for watching a bit of on-demand TV, don’t expect them to flatter your music much.

Tesco Hudl 2 Android

Tesco has mainly left Android 4.4.2 alone. The tablet has a custom launcher, which provides nicer fonts and a transparent background for the app tray compared to stock Android. This custom launcher also give you easy access to Tesco's own widgets (you're asked if you want to sign in to your Tesco account as well as Google when you first turn on the tablet) showing information such as Clubcard points, your nearest Tesco and new recipes.

You can, of course, delete all these widgets and use a different launcher, such as Google Now, instead of Tesco's. As far as Android software customisations go, the Hudl 2's are pretty mild, and you may even find them useful if you're a regular Tesco shopper. The one thing we didn’t like about the Tesco launcher was the jerky animation when flicking to the Tesco widgets page.

Tesco has also added a couple of custom apps. The first two are a sort of friendly introduction to the world of Android, which the less tech-savvy Tesco shopper may appreciate. 'Get started' takes you through how to use your tablet, and 'Top apps' gives you Tesco's pick of the Google Play store, divided into categories such as Movies, Music, Reading, Gaming and so on. Both apps are well designed and look great; the Hudl 2 certainly feels like a professionally put together piece of kit.

The Hudl 2 feels tough enough to give to your kids, and families will appreciate the Child Safety app. This lets you add profiles for up to seven members of your family, and set the web pages they can view, the apps they can use and at what times of day they can use their tablet, and for how long. The software asks for each child's age and sets defaults accordingly, and altering each child's profile is simple.

Tesco Hudl 2 camera

The original Hudl's 3.2-megapixel camera was poor, and the Hudl 2's 5-megapixel sensor isn’t brilliant either. Images look low-resolution and smeary with little detail; the camera is the most obvious place where costs have been cut. Still, a  camera is arguably less important on a tablet than a smartphone, so we can forgive this flaw, particularly on such an inexpensive tablet. 

Tesco Hudl 2 performance

The Hudl 2 has a quad-core "Bay Trail" Intel Atom Z3735D processor running at 1.33GHz, and 2GB RAM. It did fairly well in our benchmarks, completing the SunSpider JavaScript test in 804ms, which is a mid-table result. In the 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme test, the tablet's score of 7,686 is also pretty quick, showing that it can cope with some high-performance games, although the best tablets score a couple of thousand points more.

In actual use, the tablet is acceptably quick, but it's not absolutely silky smooth; compared to the Nexus 7, for example, there's some very mild lag when opening and closing the app tray. Browsing complicated web pages, such as the Guardian, which has lots of nested comments, wasn't quite as smooth when panning around and zooming as on top-end tablets, but the Hudl 2's performance is absolutely fine considering its low price.

As when we tested the Dell Venue 8 Android, we noticed some incompatibility problems in games, caused by the Intel processor. For example, Assassin's Creed Pirates would sometimes refuse to load. Other games such as Plants vs Zombies 2 were fine, but be aware that not all titles will run on this tablet.

Tesco Hudl 2 battery life

The Hudl 2's other major flaw is its battery life. The tablet managed 6h 52m of continuous video playback, which is definitely below average and far behind the 9h 35m we saw from the original Hudl. If you're after a tablet to take on long journeys, this probably isn’t the model for you, and you'll need to be prepared to charge it every night – especially if your entire family wants a go.

Tesco Hudl 2 conclusion

We liked the original Hudl, which we considered basic but great value. The Hudl 2 is a vast improvement. We like the tablet's design, screen and parental control software, and although the tablet isn’t a spectacular performer, it's certainly quick enough. The only disappointment is the battery life, making this more a tablet for the home than for travelling. Despite this, for £129, there's just nothing that can touch it, and if you're a savvy Tesco Clubcard user you can get it for as little as £65. The Hudl 2 is a massive bargain, and a Best Buy.