I’ve read lots of online articles about people having technical problems with their Tesco Hudl tablets (thankfully mine is and has always been perfectly fine!), and also generally complaining about the fact that they were discontinued.
Why exactly, when it was so very popular, was the Hudl 2 discontinued, and which tablet would you recommend as a replacement? Chris, Gloucestershire
I wrote about the difficulties some readers were experiencing with their Hudls in last week’s Tech Clinic, so will recap slightly. Tesco launched the 7-inch Hudl, its first tablet, in September 2013, selling 500,000 units within seven months. A second version followed in October 2014, but Tesco quietly discontinued the line a year later, eventually confirming it would no longer sell the tablets in stores or online.
I asked Tesco why they chose to discontinue Hudl, but received no reply. In retrospect, I imagine the decision was down to dwindling sales and increasing pressure from Amazon’s own brand of cheap ‘n’ cheerful Fire tablets.
Like the Fire tablets and Amazon’s various side-projects, the Hudl effectively acted as a portal to Tesco’s own digital services, including its streaming services and e-book store, all of which have been closed down. Manufacturing Hudls was probably no longer cost-effective, so Amazon decided to pull the plug.
In terms of replacement tablets, the Fire HD tablet range starts at just £49.99 for 8GB of storage, which is hard to beat when it comes to price. If you’d rather steer clear of Amazon, Lenovo’s Tab 4 8 has 16GB of storage and is currently available for £69.99 from Argos, or Samsung’s Galaxy Tab A is around £159 from Currys.
If you’re willing to spend that bit more, Apple’s iPad is head and shoulders above all other tablets but is significantly costlier, with prices starting from £319 forthe entry-level 9.7-inch model.
Send Rhiannon your tech queries at rhiannon.williams@inews.co.uk
