VODAFONE SMART TAB 4G

The Tesco Hudl proved you don’t have to be a big-name manufacturer to make a success of selling hardware, and now Vodafone is hoping to do the same with its Smart Tab 4. For a mere £125, this compact Android tablet touts integrated 3G and a smattering of handy features.

The screen has an IPS panel with a 1,280x800 resolution, which is proving common in compact Android tablets. This doesn't give you a particularly high pixel density, especially compared to the Google Nexus 7 with its 1,920x1,200-pixel display, but it produces fairly accurate colours and wide viewing angles.

It's running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box -- another clear sign of its budget status in these KitKat (and soon to be Lollipop) days. In practice that's nothing to worry about -- it's a perfectly fine operating system, and Vodafone has done very little to tweak it -- but this isn't the tablet for you if you're keen to keep up with the latest in Android innovation.

Although it's cheap, the Smart Tab 4 makes too many compromises. This is a worthy tablet if you're after a basic device for email and browsing, but if you're planning on watching movies, TV or playing games, it's worth paying a little more for Google's sleeker, higher-resolution Nexus 7.