One of the UK’s largest supermarkets, Tesco, has today announced the Hudl, a 7″ Android tablet priced at just £119 (US$190). In a range of four colours, the Hudl is aimed squarely at families, and this could be the tablet to take on the Nexus 7 in the UK.
The Hudl comes with a 1440 x 900 HD screen and runs on a 1.5 GHz quad core processor. Storage-wise, there’s 16 GB RAM plus a microSD slot to boost space. The screenshots suggest that it’s largely vanilla Android with the addition of Tesco’s services such as online grocery shopping, blinkbox and banking. Crucially, it also comes with access to the Google Play, which means purchasers will get everything that Google has plus Tesco’s offerings. Wi-fi only (no 3G), this is a home entertainment device, not for out and about, although it does come with GPS. The pictures suggest both front and rear facing cameras but there’s no detail in the announcement.
There’s a selection of accessories too – headphones for children, a range of three different types of case, car chargers and so on.
Interestingly, one of the screenshots suggests that Hudl will support multiple profiles, which I think makes this the first tablet after the Nexus to do so (correct me if I’m wrong), and it looks like there’s some kind of content filtering to protect children. Again, important for the family market.
At £119 the Hudl is cheaper than both the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD, and it’s unlikely that many customers will actually pay the full £119. The press release says that the Hudl will be included in their Clubcard Boost loyalty scheme, meaning that loyalty vouchers can be doubled in value and many will pay less than £100 for the Hudl.
Launching a the end of the month, I think is going to be massive seller coming up to Christmas.
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