No details are provided about who has helped with the design and manufacturing process, but Tesco says that it has worked with a partner in China that "also manufacturers well-known products for Microsoft, HP, BlackBerry and Sony". In fact, bought in conjunction with coupons through Tesco's Clubcard loyalty scheme the price is driven down to below £100. The Hudl has been designed from scratch, and with a price of just £119, it will immediately appeal to anyone looking to get hold of a tablet for as little as possible. UK supermarket Tesco may seem an unlikely contender, but it is the latest company to enter the market. This is great for anyone looking for a tablet as it means there is a great deal of choice, and there is also something of a price war as manufacturers compete for attention by driving prices down. Without doubt, it is the Nexus 7 that has dominated this corner of the market, certainly in recent months, but there is a lot of competition. Apple's iPad and iPad Mini, and certainly Microsoft's Surface, are beyond the means of someone looking for something cheap and cheerful.
Compare a website to a top-end tablet or smartphone and you'll see a distinctly yellowish tinge to the Hudl's efforts at rendering whites.Price is an important factor for many people looking for a portable device. Images just don't quite pop as they do on more premium equivalents, and the white balance is truly awful at times. Of course, colour reproduction isn't nearly as good as Apple's standard-setting tablet range, nor is it up to the latest Nexus 7 or the Amazon Kindle Fire HD. The Hudl produces a solid 242ppi, which isn't far short of the full-sized iPad 4 in terms of pure pixel density.
But it still comes in at a respectable 1440 x 900 resolution, which is a good bit sharper than the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, and is even ahead of last year's Google Nexus 7. The Hudl's is far from the best 7-inch display we've ever seen, and it doesn't hold a candle to the latest Nexus 7's 1920 x 1200 screen. Besides, watching such video content directly on the Hudl isn't the chore you might be expecting. It's a shame, then, that there's no Micro-HDMI cable included in the Hudl box, but this is a fairly easy and inexpensive addition to make. These are rather unusually situated along one of the device's shorter edges - the top right, when it's aligned in landscape according to the front-camera and the embedded plastic Hudl insignia on the back. The Hudl's landscape bias can be seen in the positioning of the front camera smack bang in the middle of the bezel along one of its longer sides, as well as in the location of its main hardware buttons. We can understand it though - web browsing, watching movies and playing games are all predominantly landscape activities.
Interestingly, Tesco has designed the Hudl to be used primarily in landscape view, which is fairly uncommon for a 7-inch tablet. It's not particularly a criticism - just an observation. At 370g the Hudl sits squarely in between the aforementioned Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD, but its slightly cheaper looks and bargain price made us expect something a little lighter. That's not to say it's particularly stylish, with its slightly bulging sides and shiny plastic edging ensuring that it won't be taking on the new Nexus 7 in the desirability stakes, let alone the iPad mini.