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Tesco’s Hudl tablet was unquestionably the Brit hit of the Christmas season, with another 100,000 of the family-friendly devices flogged in the last month.
That takes the oddly spelled own-brand Android device up to 400,000 sold since its launch in September, the company announced. It’s a much bigger success than the supermarket was expecting, with the tablet out of stock on more than one occasion.
By comparison, Sony sold just over half a million of its new PlayStation 4 consoles, with all its attendant hoopla, in the month before Christmas here in the UK. That’s a pretty big number for the Hudl.
Supermarket sweet spot
Selling for £119, the Hudl aims for — and in CNET’s expert opinion, hits — a sweet spot of being cheap enough to make a mainstream Christmas present, being sturdy enough to stand up to robust use by kids, and crucially, having good enough specs to bother with at all.
With a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and a middling 1GB of RAM, it’s not the fastest, most powerful tablet around, and we’ve seen better 7-inch screens than its 1,440×900-pixel effort. But for sheer pop-it-in-your-trolley convenience — especially as you can use Clubcard vouchers for extra money off it — it’s obvious why it’s been so successful.
Here’s Andy with his full video review:
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Tesco Hudl
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Other high-street retailers attempted the same trick, with Argos selling the amusingly named (and shamefully abysmal) Bush MyTablet for £100, and Aldi flogging a Medion slate for £80. Aldi sold out in a single day, so it’s safe to say it didn’t sell as many as the Hudl.
An updated version of the Hudl is due sometime this year, Tesco CEO Philip Clarke promised last month, without saying when we might expect it.
Did you get a Hudl in your stocking? How have you found it? Has it stood up to the rigours of frequent contact with rampaging toddlers? Huddle for warmth in the comments, or on our cosy Facebook page.
