• The 7-inch Hudl can cost as little as £60 if bought with Clubcard Points
  
• It has the same built-in storage as Google's Nexus and Apple's iPad mini
• Hudl has front-and rear-facing cameras and goes on sale 30 September
• The Android device comes in black, blue, purple and red colours
  

By Victoria Woollaston

PUBLISHED: 05:54 EST, 23 September 2013 | UPDATED: 05:56 EST, 23 September 2013

Tesco has taken its first steps into the tablet computer market with the unveiling of a new £119 rival to the iPad mini.

Called Hudl, the 7-inch tablet will run the latest version of the Android operating system, dubbed Jelly Bean, and has 16GB of built-in storage.

At £119, the Hudl is the cheapest tablet on the market - £80 cheaper than Google's Nexus 7 and twice the price of the iPad mini. The device goes on sale on 30 September.

Clubcard owners will also be able to use their points to pay for the tablet under the Clubcard Boost scheme, which lets members double the value of their points on purchases, meaning the price could drop to as low as £60.

Speaking at the launch event in London, Michael Cornish, group digital officer at Tesco, said: 'Hudl demonstrates our commitment to being digital leaders.

'We have the content and now the hardware and while the price is market leading, we certainly haven’t cut corners when it comes to the specifications'.

Hudl runs on a quad-core processor, has a 3MP rear-facing camera and a 2MP front-facing cameras. Tesco also claims the Hudl has a nine-hour battery life.

Its 7-inch display is 1,400 x 900 pixels. This gives the device a pixel per inch (PPI) of 238.

Pixel per inch indicates how clear and sharp the pictures and text on a device will be, and the higher the number, the better the display.

By comparison, the iPad mini has a PPI of 163 - although the screen is 0.9-inches bigger - while the original Google Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire has 216.

Tesco's Hudl is only beaten in the seven-inch tablet market by the new Google Nexus 7 with a 323 PPI.

The Hudl has the same basic storage options as its rivals, too, but it will only be available with dual-band Wi-Fi at launch, meaning it doesn't have the 3G or 4G options that the other tablets.

Elsewhere, the Hudl has Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS, as well as a Micro HDMI port for connecting the tablet to a TV, for example, for video output.

It also comes in black, blue, purple and red.

Because the tablet runs Android, users will be able to buy music and films from the Google Play store, as well as apps.

In addition, owners will get special offers from Tesco-owned site, Blinkbox.

Earlier this year, chief executive Philip Clarke said the firm would be concentrating on its digital and online markets, with analysts claiming that this is an attempt to reinvigorate the supermarket giant after last year’s shock profits warning.

The move sees Tesco carving out its place in the growing tablet market in time for the Christmas period.

Purchases of tablets over this time are expected to see shipments of portable gadgets surpass PC sales for the first time in the fourth quarter of this year.

The shift marks a move in the direction of the ‘post-PC era’ predicted by Apple’s Steve Jobs as early as June 2010. 

The PC, tablet and smartphone market is forecast to grow by 27.8 per cent year on year in 2013, according to analysts at the International Data Corporation. The growth will be driven by tablet and smartphone shipments, while the PC outlook has been lowered by ten per cent. 

The tablet will mark Tesco’s latest venture in the technology market.

It is also launching a major in-store advertising drive this week to promote its movie and TV streaming service Blinkbox.

The drive will claim Blinkbox has ten times more of the latest blockbuster movies than Netflix and Lovefilm Instant.