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There's little doubt that Tesco will shift truckloads of these over the holiday season and the key reason for that is the price.
The Hudl 2 now costs just £99. You can also use Clubcard points to get money off. In fact Tesco's Clubcard boost can turn every £5 of Clubcard vouchers you have into £10 towards the Hudl 2. For regular shoppers looking for something to spend their vouchers on, this is a seriously tempting tablet.
As an extra incentive you'll find some freebies in the box to help you explore Tesco's ecosystem. There are vouchers for £10 off movies, £10 off ebooks, and another £10 voucher for a month's free music trial, all through Blinkbox.
There are rumblings about the future of Blinkbox amid Tesco's financial difficulties, but they are just rumours. What I do know right now is it's a decent library of content and it's very easy to use.
You'll find a large selection of the latest movies and TV shows on offer. I think £3.49 for a rental or £9.99 to buy a movie like 300: Rise of an Empire is too expensive, and so is £1.79 per episode or £16.99 for a series of Game of Thrones. But you can rent older movies for as little as 99p and there are some discounted TV shows as well.
While they can't match Blinkbox's newer content, it's worth remembering that you can get access to unlimited streaming from Netflix or Amazon Instant Video starting at £5.99 per month.
On the music front, Blinkbox offers more than 12 million tracks, which puts it in contention with Spotify, Deezer, and the rest of the music streaming gang. There's a free ad-supported version of Blinkbox Music, but there's also a £1 a week option that gets rid of ads and allows you to create playlists (up to 100 songs). It looks very competitive for the budget conscious.
You'll also find a smattering of Tesco apps with money off Tesco Direct, the F&F clothing range, and Tesco Photo when you spend a certain amount.
Put all of this together and the Hudl 2 is a really great prospect for Tesco shoppers.
Another key feature that sets the Hudl 2 apart from the crowd is the deliberate family feel. This is a mass market device that could be used by anyone.
There's a Get Started app that explains how to use the tablet in terms that your Luddite grandfather will understand. There's also a Top Apps selection highlighting Tesco's suggested picks. Naturally Blinkbox is front and centre, but refreshingly they do actually suggest some other competing services that are worth a look.
Best of all there's a Child safety app that allows you to set up profiles for your youngsters and manage exactly which apps and websites they can access.
It automatically configures based on your child's age, but they can request access to certain websites and you can tweak categories or make exceptions. Whenever you install a new app it will ask you which profiles should have access to it.
It also enables you to set time limits for usage. You can choose specific times or allocate a number of minutes. There are other apps out there that handle this kind of thing, but Tesco's offering is really nicely laid out and extremely simple. It compares well.
If you're feeling a bit of Tesco overload by now, it's important to remember that none of this precludes you from using whatever you want from the wonderful world of Android.
All of Google's apps are present and correct on the Hudl 2 and you can snag whatever you like from the Play Store.
