Tesco Hudl 2: Battery Life

Tesco doesn’t specify the capacity of the Hudl 2’s battery but does claim that it’ll last eight hours, which is an hour less than the first Hudl was capable of.

In our experience that’s about as much as you can expect from the Hudl 2 and there’s no power management modes to push things further.

In general use you can get a day’s play but you will have to charge it when you get home. In our more intense testing, running a SD video on loop with 50% brightness and Wi-Fi turned off, it doesn’t take long to see how quickly the battery drains. We managed around the seven hour mark but what was more of concern was that after an hour and 20 minutes of video, it was down to 77%. That’s a big hit in battery life. What’s to blame? The first thing we’d point the finger to is the screen. Powering that higher resolution can be demanding and surely contributes to a battery life, which is a bit below par.

Things don’t get much better when you need a quick charge adding around 10% from flat with a 30 minute charge from the supplied mains adaptor.

There’s similarly priced tablets that can definitely offer more battery like the Asus Memo Pad HD 7 tablet, which can get up to the ten hour mark in the same testing scenarios. If you plan to use it mostly at home with a plug socket nearby, it shouldn’t be a problem though.

Should I buy the Tesco Hudl 2?

For a tablet that costs £129, the Tesco Hudl 2 is the best we’ve used and that should be a wake up call for more manufacturers who have failed to deliver the same quality for the same money. The screen is fantastic for the money, the speakers are better than the ones you can find on more expensive tablets and the Intel-driven performance is so much better than last year’s slightly sluggish Hudl. It’s also the other elements that Tesco gets right that others can learn from.

The Get Started guide and Child Safety features show a better appreciation of how daunting owning a tablet can be for some and that helps give the Hudl 2 added appeal. If you compare it to the competition like the Asus Memo Pad HD 7 (£129) or even the £200 Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HDX 7, it can stand proudly next to those 7-inch tablets and does an equal if not better job in many respects.

The Hudl 2 is a family-friendly tablet with high end features and if you can live with the far from overbearing Tesco services and some battery life gripes, this is a tablet you will not be disappointed with.

Verdict

The Tesco Hudl 2 is the best budget tablet we’ve tested at this price. If you have £129 to spend on a tablet, this is the one to own.

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