Tesco to launch own-brand smartphone

[novastorm]

BBC News - Tesco to launch own-brand smartphone this year

[featured_spectre]

why not...the hudl was a storming success.

[sonofsanta]

And if it's anything like the Hudl, it'll be more or less vanilla Android, and probably easy to root - could be a great geek device. Particularly if the Nexus line is being retired, I'm going to need a new high-spec mid-price phone to fill that market gap.

[Arthur]

I'm going to need a new high-spec mid-price phone to fill that market gap.

The gap will be filled with "Android Silver" smartphones if the rumours are true. They might be even better than the various Nexus devices?

[sonofsanta]

The gap will be filled with "Android Silver" smartphones if the rumours are true. They might be even better than the various Nexus devices?

 

If the Android Silver program is anything like the Google Play Edition program, though, they'll be high end phones from mainstream manufacturers at a high end cost. I could afford a Nexus 4 at full price when it came out, there's no chance of affording a HTC One Play Edition/Silver Edition at twice that

 

Hopefully the rumoured financial backing for the program amounts to nothing more complicated than a Google device subsidy, in which case I am all for it. Otherwise, RIP Nexus, you will be sorely missed.

[Garacesh]

Don't worry @sonofsanta, I'm quite certain XDA and similar sites will grab the Silver roms and distribute them, so just get the non-silver version for cheaper (if they're available, mixed sources are telling me there will or won't be silver and bloated versions) and go to town on it.

 

I'm not surprised that Tesco are trying this at all, given how successful the Hudl ones (I, too, own one and it's a good little all-rounder. It's not too powerful, but I've never come across a situation it can't handle so far)

Hopefully it won't have the ridiculous [T] button like the Hudl does, but at least the app can be disabled so the button does nothing

[novastorm]

every little helps

[Arthur]

The Hudl 2 tablet is due to be released within "the next few weeks".

 

Tesco shelves its smartphone plans to focus on Hudl 2 tablet « Engadget

 

Alongside the Hudl 2, Tesco also said it would launch an affordable Android smartphone, but now the chain's announced those plans have been shelved while it focuses on the new tablet, which is due out "in the next few weeks." As Robin Terrell, Group Multi-Channel Director at Tesco explains, since the plan was revealed "the mobile market has become even more competitive," leading the supermarket to "put the phone on hold."

 

Where Tesco previously saw space for "an affordable, quality 4G handset," it's clearly no longer confident it can deliver a competitive product. Since it announced the phone, of course, we've seen the arrival of several budget handsets that fit that description, like the Moto G with 4G and Lumia 635. Perhaps it's also a case of Tesco being too ambitious with its hardware. Former CEO Philip Clarke said the Hudl phone would be comparable to Samsung's Galaxy S5, which makes us wonder whether hitting the right price point was simply unachievable. Clarke was all but sacked recently, leaving new head Dave Lewis with the task of clawing back lost market share. While Terrell states he decided to put the phone on hiatus in early July (before the new CEO stepped up), the move fits nicely with Lewis' plan to refocus on being the best supermarket around. We doubt money-hungry projects like creating a own-brand smartphone fit with this policy, and it could mean the team at Tesco Labs might have to spend less time on fun stuff, and more stacking shelves.

 

No one would have bought a Hudl phone, so it's just as well they shelved it.