Shopping list for Tesco: Eggs, milk, bread, tablets (the £60 7in Android kind) It has a silly name, but a surprising price. Tesco’s new seven-inch Android tablet, the Hudl, will cost a mere 60 quid and a stack of Clubcard points. Well, when a Google Nexus 7 will set you back £199, every little helps. Ahem. The Hudl incorporates a 1440 x 900 LCD, 1.5GHz quad-core CPU, dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth …
For sixty notes and a spec like that they can probably come to the party any time they like. The killer will be the true meaning of the words (from their web page linked in the article): "Hudl comes with easy access to the Tesco world and your favourite Google Apps."
If that means "we've encrypted and locked the bootloader, saddled you with Tesco shopping apps you can't remove and given you access only to a limited set of apps via Tesco Play" then it will be less good. Let's wait and see!
"Comes with your favourite Google™ Apps" as Tesco declare complete with the logos of Google Play, Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, and Youtube
Aye, where's Cyanogenmod when you need it?
Just joking, I expect that it will be on the supported list soon. And when it is I'll get one. £60 + clubcard points, nearly painless at that price.
"For sixty notes and a spec like that they can probably come to the party any time they like."
It's only sixty quid if you trade in Clubcard vouchers for the difference. Admittedly there's a multiplier on clubcard voucers, but that's true for most other uses (days out, meals, holidays etc) so the true price in cash and benefits foregone remains the equivalent of £120 unless you just happen to be sitting on a pile of vouchers that you couldn't find anything to spend on.
The interesting thing will be the actual quality of the device. If they can do a decent quality screen, and the device is acceptably reliable, then it will be a very good offer.
Pedant note: Sixty notes will of course be £400, if you're talking about legal tender on the UK mainland.
Tesco currently have £10 if your spend £75 on the tech part of their online store. Will that be around or even applicable when they start selling the Hudl from it - or conveniently cover the delivery charge.
Personally, I think of Clubcard points as saving for a rainy day that I'd forgotten I was doing.
"Even more pedantic note: 60 notes = £300. Unless they phase out the £5 note half way through..."
Notwithstanding the much rumoured, but as yet undelivered icon makeover, there is no icon for "hangs head in shame due to inability to do simple mental arithmetic", so I shall just brazen it out by declaring that I wondered who'd spot that first
Or I could mumble about inflation meaning that modern currency isn't worth what it used to be.
"Eh? who said the notes were individual ones - you must be getting confused with 60 sheets...."
Ian McKnee, did, up above. "For sixty notes and a spec like that...."
Which is entirely reasonable given the lack of a universally accepted slang term for a pound coin.
I'm assuming it's "huddle", as in "let's all huddle round the tablet and watch YouTube videos".
£60 (+howevermanyClubcardPoints) is the sort of price where I would consider giving in to the kids and letting them have one. Tesco are probably big enough to shift these in significant numbers, too.
What is it with products nowadays with childish names?
If the Sinclair ZX Spectrum had been launched today, it would probably be called the "rainBo" or "colr".
How does it compare to a full specced Asus Transformer / Samsung Galaxy performance wise? Quick enough?
I remember the Next tablet of a couple of years ago. And the HMV 'netbook' that ran Windows CE.
If the Spectrum had been launched at one period, the top-of-the range model would have been called the Spectrum Turbo. At another time, it might have been called the eSpectrum. And a couple of years ago (Tesco is behind the times) it might have been called Spectrm. Such is the nature of silly naming fads.
"I would have a lot more respect for Tesco today if they had called this thing the Tesco Value Tablet."
Don't forget that far too many Tesco Value products have a defining quality of having been "value engineered" to the point that all utility is lost.
Cynics might argue that we're both right, given that this is reportedly made by Archos.
These days company/product names appear to be driven more by domain name availability. English words and their combinations all got snapped up by cyber squatters years ago and are now held ransom for stupid amounts of money. That's why we get names/products with letters missing/added.
Having said that, I see that hudl.co.uk is owned by Tesco but hudl.com is not. Perhaps Tesco don't have world domination on their mind just yet.
Oh well you wait for IFA to make sure Samsung isn't besting the current Note 8, (it didn't so I bought one) and up pops what on paper sems to be a decent spec tablet.
The Sammy + stylus is very good for content creation but maybe I could buy a Hudl as target device for some serious App development.. (see Visual Basic for Android.) Now where's my loyalty card.
This post has been deleted by its author
"That's because Scotland doesn't have a bunch of radical Presbyterian fundamentalists - like the CoE"
You've never heard of the Free Church of Scotland or been to the Western Isles have you?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8157570.stm
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2721309
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The specs are great *at that price point*
If the build quality isn't completely dreadful, the Hudl is a winner in this household.
The Hudl will be massive this xmas.
Tesco customer service is excellent and we in the UK are protected by the SOGA so any problems with the tablet suddenly dying or the screen playing up like the N7 will most likely be sorted with an over the counter swap out or your money back.
None of this sending it back to Asus or worse, Google and waiting for weeks for a repair or replacement.
Once XDAdev crowd gets hold of it it's be rooted and booted into a custom ROM anyway.
WIN!
You must be a really happy Tesco's shopper then.
My local store is a place to avoid like the plague. Even at 06:00 there are kids running around like the place is a playground.
as for 'Every little helps', it would be nice if the staff knew where anything is after their almost weekly 'let's move things around' operation.
I only go there because it is the only place in the area that is open at 06:00 and does not charge for parking. At At the other store that is open at that time, they charge to park and yes the CCTV's are monitored 24/7 and if you try to slip in to the store to grab a newspaper without paying the parking charge you get a £60.00 fine through the post a few days later.
@Steve Davies 3:
I'm not so much defending your local branch as pointing out that this is most likely down to Senior Management Bastardry: I've read on multiple occasions of research supporting the idea that regularly rearranging stores forces regular customers to spend longer looking for the stuff they know they want/need, which in turn increases the chance of unplanned discretionary purchases.
It doesn't make it any less tedious, but it does tell you exactly what not to do if you want to see this habit die out (ie make a note of any unplanned spends that suggest themselves as a result of this, buy them elsewhere instead, and optionally write to Tesco mgmt. to tell them as much...)
As far as this tablet goes, Tesco have priced it within spitting distance of my "at that price it'd have to be super-duper shit to be a complete waste of money" threshold. Which means that, since my Eeepc's battery has recently died and I'm considering whether it's worth replacing the battery or just selling it on, that I'm eyeing up the Hudl as a potential purchase...
@Steve Davies 3 "a £60.00 fine through the post". Not a fine. Parking fines can only be issued by governmental and quasi-governmental authorities. What the supermarkets send you is an invoice.
Mind you, a supermarket that charges for parking should expect to end up with tumbleweed blowing in its aisles.
"Mind you, a supermarket that charges for parking should expect to end up with tumbleweed blowing in its aisles."
...except where it's been abused in city centres or other busy areas by tossers who use it for free all day parking. IME, the shops who charge for parking in their car park invariably refund in full at the tills when you buy something. Usually the printed ticket has a tear-off voucher.
At the other store that is open at that time, they charge to park and yes the CCTV's are monitored 24/7 and if you try to slip in to the store to grab a newspaper without paying the parking charge you get a £60.00 fine through the post a few days later.
To go off-topic for a moment... This parking charge may not be legally enforceable.
The police and local councils can issue parking tickets. That's Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) for the councils, and Fixed Penalty Notices for the police. Oh and TFL can too. These are dealt with by the criminal court system. My local council owns a bunch of the supermarket carparks, so in that case you'd have to pay. But mostly I think they're private.
However if the parking enforcement is private, then they have to use the civil court system. They may send you a thing that looks like a proper PCN, with appeals form and stripy lines, but it'll actually be something weaselly like a parking charge notification. Due to all the abuses, private firms are no longer allowed to clamp.
Whilst they still have a right to charge you for parking, and rightly so. The rules of civil courts apply, in other words they can't just charge £100, they have to justify this in terms of their loss by your breach of the contract they imply you agreed to by parking there. So if parking costs 60p, they can have that. And possibly something for admin. But instead, they have a series of carefully calibrate letters, escalating to fake legal threats from fake lawyers, and even more fake threats from fake debt collectors. And if you answer or go through their 'appeals process', then they may even try to phone you to chase. As it's going to cost them more to go to court, than they can collect, they probably won't. Though an offer of a reasonable payment, say a cheque for double the parking cost may be in order? There's a form letter to reply with done for them by a barrister (while queuing for an iPhone presumably...) and more info: Money Saving Expert.
I got my Mum out of one of these, which wasn't fair anyway recently. Plus I know someone who got one from the people running the carpark at the Asda he bloody works in. Tossers!
If I don't get my updates, there's gonna be Trubbl!
I'll go to Tesco HQ and cause a Kerfuffl!
It'll all kick off quick, and there'll be rough-and-tumbl.
I don't want the Earth, timely updates are enoughl.
[With apologies to anyone who actually likes poetry. And my old English teacher.]
Nearly spat my tea out when I saw the £60 pricetag, but if the true price is £120 for those of us who haven't been stashing clubcard points I'll probably get a Nook Smoke as my 'cheapo' tablet - Argos are doing them for £80 in 8Gb and £100 in 16Gb.
Tesco might compete on price yet I suppose, they'll probably see how much uptake there is at 60/120 and then do a price slash for Christmas.
"Now if they added a sim card slot and it made calls it would wipe the hand set market."
Only the market for those willing to hold a 7 inch slab to the side of their face, which I'd guess would be a minority. Where you might be on to something is if Tesco reason that they could do the same rebrand with a handset from a never heard of maker, and flog that as part of the Tesco mobile offer.
Orange have tried this themselves of course, but didn't seem to be able to convert it into a particularly appealing offer.
The price is still 119.99 guys. Dont get too excited and get a hard on over nothing.
You still pay (with vouchers youve accumulated over the years) for the diffrence. The writer of the article assumes everyone has another £60 worth of vouchers stashed away! Idiotic attempt to grab headlines.
Dont delude yourselves.
Now if it was £60 regular price, that would be a proper bargain. Just like the £49 Archos 80 they did last Christmas eve.
Still going strong.
Wake up and smell the coffee. The true price point and sweet spot for average tablets is £60 to £80. Rest is pure profits.
I suspect that, much like the Archos 80 I bought for the missus last year, these things will be purchased and then rapidly relegated to being shoved in drawers or left under magazines while the BLOODY 4" iPHONE is used to do all the web browsing from the sofa.
SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE CHARGER IS! AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!
Its double-value on the clubcard points(*) for this product for an unspecified period, so that would be £60 cash + £30 in vouchers. Only meaningful if you shop at Tesco and are signed up to their LC scheme anyway, of course.
(*) I shall restrain myself from suggesting this means its dubl bubl on the hubl (**)
It does NOT mean what you think it means.
Please stop propagating this nonsense.
BOTH Scottish and English banknotes are legal CURRENCY throughout the UK.
Legal TENDER is currency that must be accepted if lodged with a court for payment of a debt.
http://www.royalmint.com/aboutus/policies-and-guidelines/legal-tender-guidelines
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