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Retailers Find Low-Cost Tablet Success

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Non-CE retailers find success with own-brand low-cost tablets-- Tesco says its Hudl tablet sold well enough to merit a sequel, while Aldi recently relaunched the sold out Lifetab tablet.

Tesco HudlTesco launched the first Hudl back in September 2013. A Kindle Fire-esque 7-inch number with budget specs (including a 1.5GHz CPU and a 1440x900 display), Tesco says fiscal 2013 sales total 500000 units.

"It was recently named winner of the "ReThink Retail Technology Initiative of the Year" and we plan to launch a second device later this year," the retailer remarks in its 2013-2014 results report.

While some Tesco outlets carry the Hudl and some CE items, the retailer officially retired from computing sale back in August 2013.

Aldi tabletAldi also found success with its own tablet, the €100 Medion Lifetab E7318-- so much so the device sold out in all of a month during December 2013.

Like the Hudl, the Lifetab is a budget-spec 7-inch Android featuring a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. The relaunch is simply that, since Aldi has no plans to upgrade the table (even the OS remains Android4.2).

One thing is for sure-- low prices make for big sales numbers, at least when big name store branding is involved. However customers demand at least some quality as attempts from other retailers including Argos (MyTablet) and CarPhoneWarehouse (Avoca7), have been less successful. Either way, the war for the casual user's wallet continues apace.

Go Tesco Preliminary 2013/2014 Results

Go Aldi Lifetab Relaunch