Christmas gift guide: Top 5 alternatives to Tesco’s Hudl2 for under £150, including Amazon Fire HD6, Google Nexus 7
So the Hudl2 is no more. The web tablet, which was a surprise hit among customers, was withdrawn from sale by Tesco, just a month before Xmas.
In a statement the supermarket chain said: “We have sold out of Hudl2 tablets and will no longer be selling it in our stores or online. We would like to assure customers that we will continue to provide technical support and help to all of our customers who have purchased a Hudl. We have no current plans to release a Hudl 3.”
Which is all a great shame because the Hudl 2 was a really great web tablet. It may not have looked great as an iPad, but it boasted a raft of useful features and impressive performance.
Key specifications included a full high definition 8.3inch display (1920 x 1200 pixels) and two cameras – a 5 Megapixel main camera and and a 1.2 Megapixel rear (‘selfie’) camera.
It was also very cheap, costing around £99 (as low as £65 with ClubCard points). No wonder The Daily Mail was outraged telling us how parents were furious at Tesco for scrapping the tablet.
But don’t despair. Here we look at five alternatives to the Hudl2 which are all under £150:
5. Vodafone Tab Prime 6
£125 with 6Gb of data for free (valid for 30 days)
If you want 4G data on the go then the Vodafone Tab Prime 6 isn’t a bad choice with the PAYG option costing £125 (alternatively you can buy it on a pay monthly for £12 a month with no upfront cost).
On board is a quad-core processor and 8GB memory (up to 64GB with expandable micro SD slot). However, the 8inch screen isn’t the best quality. Running the Android Lollipop operating system, the Tab Prime 6 is also quite lightweight (just 406g) and is available with a separate keyboard. See Vodafone video here.
4. Asus ZenPad 8.0 Z380C web tablet
£99
It’s certainly not going to rival more expensive and superior spec tablets like the iPad Mini, but given it’s £99 price tag (recently reduced from £119) the ZenPad was never expected to.
For surfing the web, accessing emails etc. it’s a great little device with a lovely bright 8inch screen. An Android web tablet, it runs an adapted version of the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system and there’s a Micro SD card slot for expanding storage beyond the 16Gb provided.
Although I wouldn’t recommend it if you spend too much time playing audio (the onboard speaker is very tinny) battery life is very good – up to 16 hours with £35 optional extra power charging case. It’s available from PC World here. You can read our full review here.
3. Acer Iconia A1-830
£99
Reasonably well built 8inch design with silver metal back which adds a premium feel to this budget tablet.It has 1GB of RAM on board, 16GB storage and a 1.6GHz Dual-core Intel Atom Z2560 processor. It runs at 1024×768 – so almost but not quite 720p HD. The rear camera is a not-bad 5MP, and the font-facing camera is a not-bad 2MP too. Acer claims battery life of up to 7.5 hours on a single charge.
2. Amazon Fire HD6
£60
Although some people may find the 6inch screen just too small, performance is exceptionally good at this incredibly low price point. The new quad-core processor consists of two high-performance 1.5 GHz cores and two lower-power 1.2 GHz cores running simultaneously for optimal load balancing and power efficiency.
Also on board is a 1280×800 high-definition LCD display featuring over one million pixels (252 pixels per inch). There are also two cameras: a 2 Megapixel rear facing camera and a basic VGA front facing camera. The Fire HD is available in black, white, magenta, citron or cobalt.
1. Google Nexus 7
£129
With Google rumoured to be be working with Huawei on a successor model for the 2013 Nexus 7, you can now buy this model manufactured by Asus for less than ever before.
Packing in a full HD 1920 x 1200 display, the 7inch tablet is powered by a speedy 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. Also on board are 2GB of RAM and two cameras:a 5 megapixel rear camera as well as a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera.
