Last weekend, my family went on a theatre trip to the Pantomime.  After Snow White had been rescued from her slumber by a charming prince, there was a short interlude whilst “Herbert the henchman” invited children with “golden tickets” onto the stage.  Asking one six-year-old what she had received for Christmas, she said “A Hudl“.

The bemused actor had not heard of a Hudl before and she went on to explain “it’s like an iPad, but without the button”.

Aside from amusing me that the Tesco device might actually have a name that could catch on with consumers (cf. the Kindle Fire HD that my kids referred to as “an iPad Kindle”), this got me thinking.  Could the low cost tablets from Tesco, Argos, et al be about to shake the iPad off it’s perch? I was reading a Which report over Christmas which lauded the iPad Mini as a great small form factor tablet but it’s expensive. Meanwhile even my Mum has bought a £100 Acer tablet (I wish she’d spoken to me first but, never mind).

My father-in-law was amazed that six-year-olds would be given a tablet but I highlighted that, at £120 (or as low as £60 with Clubcard vouchers) it was a consumable device – and that’s the beauty. It doesn’t have to be great, just good enough and cheap.  After all, my very expensive 64GB 3G first generation iPad was thrown on the scrap-heap by Apple with a lack of OS updates etc. after about 2 years.  Why spend £700 when I can spend far less and upgrade more frequently? The Google Nexus may be technically superior but buying a £120 tablet is very low risk.

Let me be clear: Apple has some great premium products – but with mass market acceptance of Android they have a problem. Whilst some of my friends have purchased iPad Minis for the family (one Christmas day Facebook update read “Operation iPad Mini declared a success – never seen the children so quiet”), how many more will go for the low cost option from the supermarket?