People continuing to use the Tesco Hudl – the £119 tablet that the supermarket sold between 2013 and 2015 – are having problems with bricked devices.
Discontinued four years ago, there are still plenty of the cheap and cheerful tablets in circulation, but according to a letter in The Guardian’s Money page, many have become useless paper weights.
The problem first emerged in January, and occurs when users try to factory reset the devices, at which point they refuse to turn back on, leaving customers speculating that the setup server has been turned off without warning.
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Originally Tesco support said it was working on the issue, but according to the letter sender, the company sent out a tweet saying “Hudl 1 and the first edition Hudl 2 have reached the end of life. This means the update that has been put in place will not fix the issue you’re seeing, we’re afraid.”
The tweet seems to have vanished, but to confuse matters further the company told The Guardian that it hasn’t switched off any servers, and has a fix in place for Hudl 2, with plans to solve the problem for original Hudls in the works.
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“We’re aware of a technical issue affecting a number of Hudl users and apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused,” the company wrote. “We have already fixed the issue for the majority of those who have contacted us and are urgently working on resolving any outstanding queries.”
We liked the Hudl 2 quite a lot when we reviewed it back in 2014, but given it was a low-cost solution at the time, it won’t offer the best experience in 2019. The Amazon Fire 8 tablet is a well-priced alternative.
Has your Hudl been bricked? Let us know on Twitter: @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.