The Tesco Hudl was a true bargain, initially coming in at just £119 and now even cheaper. It was notable mostly for its rock-bottom price, undercutting even the likes of the Nexus 7, but that would mean nothing if it was an awful bit of kit, so thankfully it was well up to the basic tasks expected of a tablet.
Plenty more slates have arrived since then (including the ill-fated Argos MyTablet), but that aside there's still not much direct competition to the Hudl.
So the Hudl 2 should have a clear run at super-budget tablet victory, just as long as it makes meaningful improvements to the specs while keeping the price low. Here's what we've heard about it so far.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? The second tablet from Tesco
- When is it out? October 3
- What will it cost? Hopefully around £120 like the first one
Tesco Hudl 2 release date and price
Tesco sent us an invitation confirming that the Hudl 2 will be announced on October 3. It may not actually launch on that day, but we'd be surprised if Tesco kept us waiting much beyond that given it needs to get it out before Christmas so everyone can buy it for that person that was thinking about getting a tablet.
The supermarket chain has said nothing about the price yet, but the Hudl's main USP is its affordability, so we'd hope and assume that the Hudl 2 will be similarly priced, coming in at around £120 at launch. Though with substantial improvements expected it's possible that the price may creep up.
Tesco Hudl 2 specifications
Almost nothing is known about the Hudl 2 yet, despite us being close to the announcement date. All Tesco initially said on the matter was that it plans to release an 'enhanced' version of the Hudl, which could mean anything, since the Hudl 2 is obviously going to be improved in some way.
But alongside its announcement that the Hudl phone had been shelved, Tesco revealed that the Hudl 2 "improves on just about every area of its predecessor, from screen size to speed, design and accessories.
"Where the first hudl was used by many as a secondary device, hudl 2 has the capability to take its place as customers' primary tablet in the home."
So it's clear that we're going to be seeing a larger, more powerful slate and one which will perhaps be redesigned too.
We don't know anything more specific than that, but there are a few clues. For one thing the invite to the October 3 event says 'we want to show you the bigger picture'. That's almost certainly a reference to the increased screen size, but the mention of 'picture' may also be a hint at camera improvements.
That's certainly something we'd be happy to see, as while we tend to feel tablet cameras are a little pointless it's clear that some people do use them and the snapper on the first Hudl was appalling.
As the original Hudl came with a microSD card slot the Hudl 2 almost certainly will as well and we'd imagine it will ship with the latest version of Android too, but don't expect to see the back of Tesco's apps.
Tesco Hudl 2 screen
As mentioned above, Tesco has specifically stated that the screen size will be increased, or changed anyway, which presumably means increased, especially as the announcement invitation mentions the 'bigger picture'.
As for the exact size of the screen we may be in for an 8-inch display, as the announcement invitations were accompanied by magic 8 balls.
We also fully expect that it will be at least Full HD at the screen size, with many rumours pointing to that being the case. That would be a modest-ish upgrade on the 7-inch Hudl, though we hope the resolution will be increased too, as the original is just 1440 x 900.
Tesco Hudl 2 design
The announcement invitation also includes a number of brightly coloured squares and the Hudl 2 page on Tesco's site (which currently just says 'coming soon') is also distinctly colourful, which may mean we're in for a wider range of colour options on the Hudl 2 itself.
Since Tesco has specifically mentioned the design of its new slate we imagine it will be more than just the colour which changes though. One obvious area of improvement would be to shrink the positively massive bezels.
An all-new CPU?
The older Hudl came with a quad core offering, and we're thinking the same will be happening here. But if this truly is going to be a primary tablet in the home, we're hoping there's a big name behind the processor, perhaps a Qualcomm or Intel, and that will result in whizzy-fast graphics and speeds.
With the larger screen we should be able to get a longer battery life too (despite the increase in pixels) so it should be possible to use the CPU to gain those efficiencies.
- We've got the details on a new Nexus slate too.
