What I’ve Learned During 6 Months of Hudl2 Repairs

I’ve been running this Hudl2 repairs site for about 6 month now, so I thought, in the spirit of sharing, it might be nice to provide some insights into the things I’ve learned.

The first standout thing that was somewhat surprising to me was how frequently Hudl2 motherboards fail. The main problem here is that the Hudl2 itself is extremely susceptible to moisture. When steam gets inside the case it condenses into water on the motherboard, creating a short circuit which results in the Hudl2 overheating. This inevitably cooks the CPU, rendering the Hudl2 entirely useless. It would appear that lots of people enjoy watching Netflix in the bath! If you want to keep your Hudl2 healthy then never expose it to a steamy environment. If you do this it will only be a matter of time before it overheats and dies. It’s not possible for mortal humans to repair Hudl2 motherboards due to the micro-circuitry, so the only option is to replace a faulty motherboard. This results in a factory fresh Hudl2 without any of your original data. So the best bet is to try and consciously avoid exposing your Hudl2 to steam in the first place. Don’t use it in the bath, and don’t leave it in the kitchen next to bubbling pans of water.

As a result of this, the next thing I learned is that most people assume that if a Hudl2 won’t charge, it *must* be a problem with the charging board. In reality, it almost never is. Over the six months I’ve been doing this, I haven’t seen a single problem with a charging board, unless the USB connector was physically damaged by someone repeatedly jamming the charging cable in the wrong way around. As a result of this I had to adapt the USB Charging Board replacement page, as I lot of people were sending me Hudl2’s convinced that the issue was with the charging board, when they’d cooked the motherboard watching Netflix in the bath. As I would much rather not spring nasty surprises on my customers, I tried to make this as clear as possible.

Another thing I learned is that many people seem to think that there is an endless source of new Hudl2 parts and are very concerned about getting a “new” screen to replace a broken one. The truth is that there are no new parts of Hudl2’s. They are completely obsolete as Tesco ceased production of them back on 18 November 2015.  It’s only possible to salvage replacement parts from other Hudl2’s. This has led to an interesting situation with Hudl2 whereby the parts are worth more than the sum of the whole. So what do I mean by this? At the time of writing you can buy a reconditioned, “good as new” Hudl2 on eBay for between £70 and £100.

However, if you take it apart it consists of:

Hudl2 Screen/LCD: £35
Hudl2 Motherboard: £55
Hudl2 Battery: £10
Hudl2: Speakers: £5
Hudl2: Front Camera: £5
Hudl2: Rear Camera: £10
Hudl2 Back Panel: £7

Which equals £127. Of course, it would take quite a lot of work to sell all of these components individually. So it’s worth bearing in mind that there is some value in a broken Hudl2!

The other thing that I’ve learned is that people generally love their Hudl2’s and feel a genuine sense of loss when they stop working. As a lot of these were bought for kids, I noticed a significant spike in business that coincided with the school holidays. I think a lot of this was due to Mine Craft deprivation. Mine Craft PE runs brilliantly on the Hudl2 and kids that like Mine Craft can play it for hours. One of the things the Hudl2 is really good at is keeping children occupied, as a result, a broken Hudl2 can have a catastrophic impact on the balance of family life.