The Battleground – with the new Hudl2 on release, is this the best Tablet for students on a budget?

Tesco are often known as the company behind affordable supermarket shopping, and arguably obliterate town centre shopping with their megastores. What you may not have realised is that since September 2013, Tesco have become a tablet manufacturer too. With an impressive 9 hour battery life, 7 inch screen and the latest version of Android (at the time of release), Tesco’s original Hudl was an overnight success with its £120 pricetag. It was however, only a matter of time until it’s successor made an appearance.

The perhaps unimaginatively named Hudl2 is, as Tesco coined, ‘Bigger, Better, Faster’. It certainly lives up to that, with a larger 8.1” display and fast Intel Atom Quad Core Processor. This tablet is within the realms of some of the top end tablets, having more RAM than the current iPad Air. The deal breaker for the Hudl2, as with the original is the price, and it doesn’t disappoint. At £129, Tesco have again brought significant speed and usability to an affordable price, with only Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD 7 (£119) and Google’s Nexus 7 (£119) in close competition.

Each of these three tablets have their pros and cons, for instance both the Nexus 7 and the Hudl2 run ‘Vanilla Android’, a pure version of the operating system with no tweaks or spam-ware from the manufacturer. In contrast, the Kindle Fire HD 7 may as well not be running Android with it’s heavily skinned interface and close ties to Amazon’s networks; you can’t download apps onto the Fire without using Amazon’s own App Store, which doesn’t always have the latest releases.

It seems the real decision for the best student tablet on a budget is between the Hudl2 and the Nexus 7. Both run smoothly and are easy to use, with access to the latest  apps and services. It’s worth noting however, that the Hudl2, being created by Tesco, holds many marketing gimmicks especially linked to their Clubcard scheme, which some may find intrusive and annoying.

My advice currently, would be to go for the Nexus 7. Although it is technically very similar to the Hudl2, it alleviates any problems of marketing related privacy and spam-ware, and running Android the way Google intended. The perfect blend of portability, power and ease of use.

 

Andrew Dodson

Feature Image: PC Advisor/Tech Advisor