Tesco

Tesco Hudl 2 Date and Time Repeatedly Incorrect

Richard Green on

Since about a week or so ago, the kids Tesco Hudl 2 tablets that they got for Christmas have been consistently reporting the wrong date and time. The issue is easily spotted because anytime they launch an app or open the Google Play Store or perform any action that depends on an SSL certificate, they are shown a certificate warning due to the inconsistency between the server date and time and the client date and time. Sometimes the tablet can appear just a few hours out of sync but in the main, it seems that the devices reset their date to January 1st 2015.

Yesterday, I noticed for the first time that my Hudl 2 tablet started exhibiting the same behaviour which led me to look online to see if this is a widespread issue as I couldn’t believe that all four of our Hudl 2 tablets could show the same symptoms and problems within two weeks’ of each other, especially considering I bought my tablet about a month after we bought the kids theirs so they would likely be from different batches of manufacturing.

Searching online, I came across a thread on the Modaco forums at http://www.modaco.com/topic/373796-misreported-time-and-other-things/ where other users are reporting the same issue and that it only seems to manifest after circa one month of using the device: an interesting observation given that I first powered up the kids tablets the week before Christmas to configure them and I got mine the week after Christmas.

Several users have tried contacting Tesco Technical Support and are advised to hard reset the devices or to exchange them in a local store but the issue continues to return and it appears from one commenter that Tesco is now working on a firmware update to address the issue. To me, this says that the current firmware build clearly has an issue relating to the CPU clock and tracking the time in relation to the CPU clock.

I reached out to Tesco on Twitter today to try and find out if it’s possible to contact their support via email or Twitter as opposed to phone as I don’t want to have to call them to add four new serial numbers to the list of effected devices that they are tracking. If I get a response, I’ll update the post here but in the meantime, if you have a Hudl 2 from Tesco and are experiencing the same date and time reset issue, it’s not you, it appears to be a known problem they are working on but please do report it to Tesco.

The more people that report the issue, the faster Tesco are likely to work on the firmware update and get it released.

 

Comparing the Cost of Windows Phones in the UK

Richard Green on

In an angry come jealous state, my wife Nicky today upgraded her O2 contract and got herself a HTC HD7. My contract is due for upgrade at the end of October, so I have another week and a bit to wait before I had upgrade.

In my current agreement with O2, I have a very tidy deal going on thanks to my employment from Xerox which grants me 30% discount on the monthly line rental, however my sources on the O2 Customer Forums tell me that this deal doesn’t exist any longer, so I’ve set out to compare my current plan with some plans on O2, Vodafone and Orange which are of interest – Interest being defined in this case by price and value for money, which is in turn determined by the inclusive allowance of each contract.

As you will see from the above PowerPoint WebApp slide, my current package weighs in at an 18 month overall cost of £585, while if I upgrade to what O2 will recommend me in it’s place, the Smartphone 45, I will be spending a whopping £810 instead, meanwhile Vodafone come out on-top with the Vodafone tariff at £35 per month weighing in at a somewhat mild £630 over 18 months.

Sure, I could save £5 per month on all of these networks by switching to 24 months, but having to wait 18 months for the next iteration of phone is dire enough.

If Tesco Mobile started to sell Windows Phone 7 devices, I would probably jump over there to get a 12 month contract – Something of a rarity these days.