iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison

The Tesco Hudl 2 and iPad Air 2 are at opposite ends of the tablet market spectrum, with Tesco’s Hudl 2 offering one of the cheapest price tags available and Apple’s flagship representing one of the most expensive. But what do you get for your money? We compare the two tablets to help you decide which is best for you in our Tesco Hudl 2 vs iPad Air 2 comparison.

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iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison: UK price & availability

Taking a closer look at the price of these two tablets to begin with, you’ll spot that there’s a rather large difference between them. The Tesco Hudl 2 is available at a brilliant price of just £99, while the iPad Air 2 starts at £399. That’s a difference of £300… you could buy four Hudl 2’s for the price of one iPad Air 2.

Plus, if you’re a ClubCard member you can get the Hudl 2 even cheaper using your vouchers. Plus, the Hudl 2 comes with £60 worth of vouchers in the box. Some require a minimum spend but £25 of Blinkbox credit is a nice touch.

There’s only one model of Tesco Hudl 2 to buy, so it’s £99 or nothing, but if you choose to buy the iPad Air 2 you’ve got several choices as listed below. We talk a bit more about storage later in this article.

16GB WiFi: £399
64GB WiFi: £479
128GB WiFi: £559

16GB WiFi + Cellular: £499
64GB WiFi + Cellular: £579
128GB WiFi + Cellular: £659

iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison: Design & build

In addition to their price tags, the Hudl 2 and iPad Air 2 have quite different appearances, too. The Hudl 2 is made with plastic while the iPad Air 2 is made with a more premium aluminium, but they’re both smart and good-looking devices.

The Hudl 2 has a matt finish casing that’s easy to grip, and is available in a variety of colours including Zesty Orange, Dreamy White, Perky Purple, Bubblegum Pink, Tropical Turquoise, Rocket Red, Slate Black and Jazzy Blue.

It’s not too heavy, at 401g, and measures a reasonable 9mm thick. We like its rounded corners and clean lines, and in some ways it reminds us of Apple’s iPhone 5C.

If we’re being picky, we’d say that the holes for the rear speakers aren’t neatly symmetrical, but that is only a minor thing.

It’s something, however, that you wouldn’t find on Apple’s iPad Air 2, which is a beautifully sleek and stylish tablet that is highly desirable. It’s available in Silver, Gold or Space Grey and also has rounded edges. It’s much thinner than the Tesco Hudl 2 at 6.1mm but not lighter, as it weighs 437g. That’s not surprising, though, because the iPad Air 2 has a bigger screen which we talk about more below.

We’d suggest that the Tesco Hudl 2 is less likely to suffer from dents and scratches as it’s made with plastic rather than the reasonably vulnerable aluminium of the iPad Air 2, but there are lots of great cases available for the iPad Air 2 to keep it safe.

iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison: Display

As mentioned, the Tesco Hudl 2’s display is slightly smaller than the iPad Air 2, at 8.3in compared with 9.7in. It makes a pretty big difference – the Hudl 2 is actually closer to the size of the iPad mini, which has a 7.9in display. We’ve compared the Hudl 2 with the iPad mini 3 here.

The Hudl 2’s display is Full HD, with a 1920 x 1200 resolution. It’s bright and crisp with a pixel density of 272ppi, so you’ll find it ideal for watching videos. That’s seriously impressive for a budget tablet.

The iPad Air 2’s Retina display also has a resolution of 2048 x 1536 but the bigger display means its 264ppi, lower than the Hudl 2’s. However, you’ll still find the iPad Air’s display to be colourful and sharp, and you may well prefer that bigger display if you plan on watching lots of movies or TV on it.

iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison: Specs & performance

Inside the Hudl 2 is an Intel Atom quad-core processor at 1.83GHz, which is paired with 2GB RAM. It offers decent performance that’s nippy and smooth most of the time, with the only slight lag occurring when switching between user profiles and homescreens.

In our benchmark tests, the Hudl 2 scored a strong 2165 in Geekbench 3, a more modest 17fps in the T-Rex graphics test, and 786ms in the SunSpider Javascript test which is pretty good.

Not as good as the super-speedy iPad Air 2 though, which managed a very fast 287ms in SunSpider and an incredible 4520 in Geekbench 3. That’s thanks to its 64-bit A8X processor and 1GB of RAM.

The iPad Air 2 boasts the additional Touch ID fingerprint sensor feature, which helps keep the tablet secure, and connectivity options that aren’t offered by the Hudl 2 include optional 4G LTE. The Hudl 2 does has a mini HDMI port for connecting to your TV, though.

When it comes to battery life, the iPad Air 2 will last for up to 10 hours, while the Hudl 2 touts a battery life of around 8 hours.

iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison: Storage

One of the downfalls of the Hudl 2 is that it is only available with 16GB built-in storage. However, even though Tesco states that the microSD card slot allows for 32GB of additional storage, you can use a 64GB card – as long as it’s formatted to FAT32.

The iPad Air 2 is available with 16GB, 64GB or 128GB, but you’ll need to make the decision about what you’ll need when you buy it as there’s no MicroSD card slot for adding more. Opting for the 128GB model is costly, though, at £559.

iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison: Camera

The camera on the rear of the Hudl 2 is 5Mp, and on the front is a 1.2Mp camera for selfies and video calls. There’s no flash for taking photos in dark environments, though, and it can take an age to focus.

The iPad Air 2 boasts an 8Mp rear camera and a similar 1.2Mp front-facing camera to the Hudl 2. Like the Hudl, it doesn’t have an LED flash so isn’t great in the dark.

iPad Air 2 vs Tesco Hudl 2 comparison: Software

The Hudl 2 runs Android 4.4 KitKat which is pretty much unchanged from the stock Android that Google created. On the iPad Air 2, you’ll get Apple’s iOS 8 operating system, soon to be updated to iOS 9.

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