Lenovo Idea Tab Pro Tablet Review: It Gets the Job Done

The Lenovo Concept Tab Professional is not a tablet to get terribly enthusiastic about. Happily, it would not have to be.

It matches into an affordable finances, providing respectable qualities, although not gorgeous ones. Its efficiency is not showstopping, nevertheless it holds as much as on a regular basis operation with ease. The show might be brighter and punchier, nevertheless it’s brilliant sufficient and lots sharp. The design would not catch the attention, nevertheless it would not look outright low cost both. 

Loads hinges on the worth, although. As Lenovo suggests, the Idea Tab Pro might be as a lot as $419. At that value, it would begin to really feel slightly overpriced when one thing just like the RedMagic Astra is simply $160 extra and provides leaps and bounds in high quality and efficiency.

Lenovo’s pricing is never stationary, although, and the truth that I’ve seen the Tab Professional as little as $289 throughout my time with it suggests you would possibly have the ability to discover it for a lot lower than MSRP. At $289, the Lenovo Concept Tab Professional is a correct steal, providing loads of utility as a light-weight productiveness and media consumption gadget.

The Lenovo Concept Tab Professional begins at $389 with 128GB of storage. That bumps as much as $419 for 256GB. On the time of writing, the smaller storage model had a $100 low cost that wasn’t accessible for the bigger storage mannequin. Each variations embrace the Tab Pen Plus stylus, however they do not embrace a keyboard folio cowl — a $119 accent for this pill. (Get a slim Bluetooth keyboard instead.)

One function the Concept Tab Professional has that lots of its rivals do not is a microSD card slot, letting you cheaply increase the storage if you happen to begin to run out of area sooner or later.

No speedster, however not sluggish

The Lenovo Concept Tab Professional is not any efficiency beast. Some MediaTek chipsets just do tremendous, conserving tempo with the perfect Qualcomm has to supply. The MediaTek Dimensity 8300 contained in the Lenovo Concept Tab Professional is not considered one of them. It falls effectively behind the CPU and GPU efficiency of the Snapdragon 8 Elite and even the sooner Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that also finds its approach into units like Lenovo’s personal Yoga Plus.

That stated, the Concept Tab Professional is not some whole laggard both. It vastly outpaces a less expensive pill just like the Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023). The Pixel Tablet is slightly older, nevertheless it’s nonetheless floating round with the identical obscene $499 price ticket it began with. In comparison with the Pixel and its Tensor G2 SoC, the Concept Tab Professional truly stacks up very well. The Lenovo got here out forward in Geekbench 6 single- and multicore CPU efficiency in addition to 3DMark Wild Life Limitless, albeit extra narrowly. Within the graphically demanding MotionMark take a look at, it doubled the Pixel Pill’s rating. 

All that’s to say that the Lenovo Concept Tab Professional has greater than sufficient energy to deal with informal use with out many hiccups. Heavy video games are usually not within the playing cards for this pill, as an example, until you are prepared to dial again the settings considerably.

I did discover one concern watching YouTube at 2x playback velocity, which noticed the video body fee drop significantly, changing into uneven. This got here and went for a minute or so after which appeared to fully rectify itself. 

However, battery life is powerful. It ran for 741 minutes (12.35 hours) in our video streaming take a look at with the show set to 50% brightness. That fifty% wasn’t dim both, placing out an affordable 141.5 nits. So it isn’t an distinctive marathon machine, however it will probably maintain up below prolonged use. 

Plain and utilitarian

The Lenovo Concept Tab Professional is on the plain aspect, lookswise, nevertheless it’s not ugly. It has a grey, aluminum case that wraps across the sides and again. A small clear bump holds the rear digital camera and flash. A bit alongside the highest rear edge has diagonal accent strains. It is on this area that the stylus can magically (OK, magnetically) latch onto the pill. 

The stylus, sadly, is not too spectacular. It must cost individually by way of USB-C, not by drawing energy from the pill itself, and it lacks any haptics. These are two factors that made the Yoga Tab Plus’ stylus extra interesting. Latching the stylus on the again additionally makes it susceptible to getting knocked off when sliding out and in of luggage. 

The 12.7-inch LCD has even bezels all the best way round for a tidy look, even when these bezels aren’t impressively skinny. The show is satisfying, providing a sharp-for-the-size 2,944×1,840-pixel decision and a clean 144Hz refresh fee.

It is not insanely brilliant, peaking at 411 nits in my testing, nevertheless it’s cheap. It is only a disgrace it would not have the identical antiglare coating discovered on the Yoga Tab Plus. 

Either side of the show has a pair of JBL audio system that pump out a great deal of sound. Whereas the sound can typically have some audible resonances, total it is a largely agreeable high quality for a pill.

The USB-C charging port is between two of those audio system, and close by is the little microSD card tray. 

Alongside the underside edge, the Tab Professional features a broad set of pogo pins and two little slots that assist it latch onto and talk with a keyboard accent. Once more, that keyboard is not included with the pill. 

Lenovo provides facial recognition utilizing the front-facing digital camera and has a fingerprint scanner constructed into the facility button. Each have labored shortly and successfully, although the facial recognition stopped working after I shaved a really quick beard. 

So, in all, the Lenovo Concept Tab Professional is a stable, if not world-shattering, performer, particularly if you will discover it for lower than its MSRP.