The pandemic increased our appetite for tablets, with iPads improving its lead in the market. But the last few years have also been kind to Android tablets, which has given Samsung a lot to talk about while rival brands contributed now and then. The low proliferation of Android tablets is partially Google’s fault because it hasn’t taken the segment seriously but hopefully that’s changing with Google’s ‘L’ version of Android, geared towards the tablet segment. That brings us to Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen), which we had for review for a few weeks. And it has all the makings of a champion. Lenovo appears to have got the mix of software and hardware just right with the new tablet.
The keyboard needs to be bought seperately and it gives the tablet a feel of a laptop.The stylus comes in the box
Bright screen and sparkling audio
The Wi-Fi tablet has a flagship-level build with a gorgeous metallic enclosure, besides being lightweight and coming with four speakers. It’s a pretty slim tablet at 6.8mm thickness while the 11.2-inch 2.5K OLED display is the high point of the machine. The bezels are just about right to grip the screen while reading books or during videoconferencing. This is an OLED screen offering 120Hz refresh rate. In other words, deep blacks, excellent contrast, a wide colour gamut and very good viewing angles. Even if you keep the tablet at the weirdest of angles, you will be able to view the screen. Lenovo took it a notch higher by adding 120Hz refresh rate, which matters when you are using a big screen. Scrolling through feeds becomes easy on the eye and it adds to the gaming experiencing.
The aspect ratio is friendly towards reading ebooks in vertical mode or watching films without thick black bands in the horizontal mode. The screen is reasonably bright at 600 nits and there is support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. To get something like this from a rival brand, pricing would be substantially higher. Be it Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, there are zero complains while watching content while the screen size is just about right for portability.
Keeping the screen company is the audio set-up that comprises four speaker cutouts on the tablet. The quad JBL speakers are well-tuned and it can get loud without distorting sound. The sound profile keeps voice at the front while the level of bass that, say, the music of Drake has to offer is excellent. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack but more and more brands are doing away with this feature and even the new entry-level iPad has done the same.
Add a kickstand; it comes with a pouch for the stylus
Flawless performance
What I liked most about the tablet is what you can do with it. First, it comes with MediaTek Kompanio 1300T chipset or the rough equivalent of Dimensity 1200 chipset on the smartphone front. It’s a versatile chipset that allows work to get done and we are not just talking about one app at a time. Plus, there is 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. You can use the tablet as simply a content-consumption tool. When it comes to work, get the productivity mode on. This can be achieved by docking the screen with the keyboard or toggle the option on from the control centre.
It runs two apps side by side flawlessly, something like Powerpoint in one and Word in the other. Keep a bunch of tabs open on the Edge web browser, Twitter, Microsoft 365 and so on. The machine will not buckle. Xiaomi Pad 5 too is a good tablet but Lenovo manages to do a better job with extra RAM; there is excellent memory management here.
In case you add a keyboard with the tablet, the machine takes a step forward. It can become a bit like a laptop and is perfect for short work trips. The Lenovo keyboard is well-designed, the keys are well spaced out and there is good key travel. The only quibble is the delete button which hovers above the backspace key.
Coming with the tablet is the Precision Pen 3. It’s a good stylus that can be used to take notes, make illustrations and handle quite a few tasks but I wouldn’t rate it as high as Samsung S Pen. You can attach the stylus to the top of the screen or if you are using the kickstand cover, there is a pouch to hold it. Xiaomi Pad 5 falls behind when it comes to availability of its keyboard.
Should you buy it?
The 8MP front camera is on the long right bezel, making things easy during videoconferences while the 13MP rear camera is quite good for a tablet. Plus, you get good mic quality. The tablet comes with an 8,200mAh battery, which should give you seven/eight-odd hours of screen-on time but a lot depends on the work you do. What I would have liked to see is faster charging. At the moment it takes over two hours to juice up.
This is a Wi-Fi variant but I don’t see any issues with that because you can always use the Hotspot on your phone to connect. The software is well-tuned and the machine is running Android 12. But I would like to see a lot more tablet-friendly features from Android.
Given its versatile nature, Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) is a powerhouse and don’t forget the company’s good after-sales service.
The tablet gets the feel of a book when you add a keyboard cover
At a glance
Device: Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen)
Price: Rs 39,999 with Precision Pen 3 bundled; keyboard accessory, Rs 5,499
High notes
- One of the best tablet screens in the market
- Excellent audio output
- Attach a keyboard to make it a versatile device
- Good processing power
Muffled note
- Charging takes too long