Review: Lenovo Tab — it’s not much, but still enough for most folks

We spend a lot of time looking at specs and power here at EFTM, but in the real world, is the use of either of these by most folks really significant?

My Dad is laid up for the next few weeks, and I decided to buy him an Android tablet so he can watch Kayo and other media, surf the Internet, and read books and magazines.  His use case does not require large amounts of power – he’s 80; he’s not into gaming.

Enter JB Hi-Fi and their semi-regular sale on Lenovo tablets.  Advertised was the Lenovo Tab, model TB311FU, powered by a MediaTek Helio G85 paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.  Entry-level, that’s for sure, but for $150 brand new, what more can you expect?  

Design and build quality

Gone are the days of plastic, cheap Android tablets, replaced by what feels to be precision-manufactured, solid tablets.  The Lenovo Tab is no exception with a really nice feel to it, with relatively square edges.  The power and volume buttons are also solid, with a decent click.  

Overall, what do you really need from a tablet?  You need something that feels good to hold and is solid enough to withstand the rigours of everyday use – most often in the comfort of your own home.

The display is a 10.1-inch IPS display, not an AMOLED, but it is $150.  The 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution delivers a decent-quality image with good colour and black levels.  The max brightness is only around 400 nits but I personally didn’t see any issues when using it.  This is not a tablet you will be using outdoors in bright light for work.  The display is not outstanding overall, but it is certainly passable, especially for most people’s requirements and, most certainly, for my Dad’s.

The bezels on the tablet are relatively small but not so small that you may cause accidental touches while holding it.

Battery life

The tablet’s battery life is quite impressive, though most tablets offer decent battery life.  The 5,100mAh battery is actually quite small when it comes to tablets, but even with that I was able to get quite a few nights of use out of it.  A tablet is a device where battery life is less important than on a phone – the battery will last your flight as long as you aren’t watching movies the entire time.  I got around 7-8 hours of video playback out of it.

Software

For a budget tablet like this one, you really don’t need much extra when it comes to software.  If your use case is video playback, reading books, or browsing the web, then you don’t need all the fancy split-screen software.  Instead, you get the standard Android split-screen software and that works just fine.  I’m not convinced Dad will ever use it, but it’s there should he ever decide to.

The rest of the software is how Lenovo usually do it, minimally.  It is basically just pure Android with a few tweaks here and there, which, for an underprowered, budget tablet such as this, is ideal.

Final thoughts

The Lenovo Tab might be a cheap tablet and may well struggle with intensive tasks, but for most people’s everyday tablet use, it is just fine. I wouldn’t be using it to play games other than basic sudoku, etc., but for reading books and magazines, watching movies or streaming TV/sports, it is just fine — and that’s all you need it to be.

It cost me 0 on sale from JB Hi-Fi, and when you consider your smartphone most likely costs you more than 10 times that, it’s a damn good deal. If all you need is a basic tablet for basic tasks, the Lenovo Tab is perfect, and at a sub-0 price, you can’t go wrong.