Last Updated on February 26, 2018
Performance
From the specifications, the Hudl seems well endowed. With a quad core CPU processor and a reasonable dollop of RAM, it should be able to hold its own and cope with the demands of the Android operating system. However, the Hudl has somewhat of a shaky performance. It has a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, but at times it does not live up to expectations. A SunSpider JavaScript test time of 1365ms is commendable, falling someway short of say a Samsung Galaxy S4, but still fairly decent. According to the AnTuTu Benchmark, the Hudl scored an average of 19313, which places it ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S3, Google Nexus 4, and HTC One X smartphones.
The Tesco Hudl holds up well against the Google Nexus 7 (2013) under the AnTuTu benchmark with the only major deficiencies lying in the 2D and 3D graphics tests. As you can see, from the screenshot on the left, in some of the tests the Tesco Hudl scores better than the Nexus 7 (2013), which is no mean feat for a tablet that is 80 pounds cheaper.
One particular weak area of the Hudl is its 3D graphics performance. The GPU in the Hudl is the Mali-400 MP. Whilst the GPU is multi-core and provides 2D and 3D acceleration, it lacks a unified shader architecture, and has been surpassed by many other GPUs such as the Adreno 320 and Nvidia Tegra 4. The Hudl is poorly equipped for playing 3D games. For example, playing Real Racing 3 was not a particularly enjoyable experience with low frame rates. However, this issue does not affect the vast majority of games available on Google Play, such as say Angry Birds, Rayman Jungle Run, and Fieldrunners 2 which are handled with aplomb.
We do not hold too much reliance on benchmarks; what really matters is real life performance. Android on the Hudl is not as graceful as we have witnessed on other tablets, albeit ones that cost considerably more than the Hudl. On-screen buttons did not always register on the first press, keyboard input very occasionally stuttered, flipping from portrait mode to landscape mode could be a little more sprightly for our liking, and scrolling in Chrome is not as fluid as we would like, particular when rendering complex web pages.
However, the tablet still has enough grunt to be a real pleasure to use for surfing the net, listening to music, reading emails, watching videos, streaming video with Netflix, engaging in social media, and lots of other day to day activities.