Lenovo is a reference manufacturer in the tablet market, especially as regards the business and educational sectors. In addition, the company boasts an endless range of devices for all budgets: just a few months ago, for example, in our review of the Lenovo Tab P12 we told you about one of the better alternatives in its price rangethat of 400-500 euros.
Not all students and workers, however, have such a budget at their disposal: many are looking for a product with a pricetag lower, obviously provided you make some compromises from a performance point of view. Fortunately, for this segment of the public Lenovo has thought of the Tab M11which has a list price of 229 Euros but which can be purchased for only 199 Euros with the discount code “APRIL” on the company’s website.
With such a low cost, the Tab M11 proves to be an extremely interesting device, especially in terms of quality-price ratio. We have tested Lenovo Tab M11 for a couple of weeks: here’s our verdict!
A complete package, complete with Tab Pen
Let’s start from the unboxing of the device, since from the moment we open the box we can see how the Lenovo Tab M11 package is truly completethanks to the inclusion of the USB-C charging cable in the package (the power block is missing, which must be purchased separately) and, above all, of the Lenovo Tab Pen.
The presence of a stylus is a surprise that we would not have expected to find in a product in the price range below 200 euros: the Tab Pen is a really useful accessory for anyone who uses the device and seeing it included in the package of an entry-level tablet is something more unique than rare, since many competitor of Lenovo do not take the same care towards their users. Obviously, the stylus is rather rudimentary, since it is powered by AAA batteries and It does not connect magnetically to the tablet, which makes it quite easy to lose it while traveling (unless you have a case to store it in). The inclusion of the stylus is however almost obligatory, because many of the software pre-installed in the Tab M11 focus on hand annotations and drawing. Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that Lenovo Tab M11 is available in two versionsi.e. the Wi-Fi only one and the one with support for 4G connectivity – another choice that is anything but obvious in a low-cost device.
Coming to the tablet itself, the M11 has a strangely “premium” feeling for its price range, thanks to a good choice of plastic on the back panel. Its dimensions are equal to 255.26 x 166.31 millimeters, with a thickness of only 7.15 millimeters. The weight, however, is equal to 465 grams: not bad for a tablet with an 11″ screen. Around the screen we find some symmetrical edges rather pronounced, but not excessive. Furthermore, the selfie camera is located on the long side of the tablet and not on the “vertical” one.
In terms of physical buttons, keys and slots, the Lenovo Tab M11 features a power button and two volume rockers, both located around the top right corner, as well as a SIM card slot, of a microphone (which is located just above the webcam) and a total of four speakers with support for Dolby Atmos, also reiterated by the single writing on the elegant rear panel. Speaking of the latter, on the back we also find an 8 MP camera with autofocus.
The resolution is the same as the front selfie camera, but the advice is not to use the two sensors except for a few quick video calls or to photograph the blackboard at school or university. The Lenovo Tab M11 is equipped with an audio jack for headphones, which could be useful if you are a lover of wired earphones, while the USB-C charging port supports fast charging (so to speak) up to 15 W: from this point of view more could have been done. Nonetheless, the The tablet’s battery is really goodsince it combines a 7,040 mAh cell with a very low-energy SoC, which will last you without problems for a day of studying (and something more).
The specifications of Lenovo Tab M11
Passing underneath the body, the SoC of Lenovo Tab M11 is a Helio G88 by MediaTek, with an Octa-Core CPU (2 Core Cortex-A75 at 2.0 GHz and 6 Core Cortex-A55 at 1.8 GHz) and a Mali-G52 MC2 GPU. It is not exactly a new generation chip, on the contrary: the Helio G88 has a good three years behind it, which are all felt in the use of the device.
To the SoC they add one Just 4 GB LPDDR4x RAM and 128 GB eMMC 5.1 storage (the only size available) not expandable. Faced with technical specifications like this, it is difficult to say where the truth really lies bottleneck in the performance of the device, since both the CPU, RAM and storage are decidedly suboptimal for 2024.
What is certain is that – net of very low consumption, and therefore a very long battery life of the device – slowdowns and brief freezes are quite common, especially when the tablet is put under stress. Nothing that can really compromise the user experience when you limit yourself to studying, productivity, browsing the web and social media and streaming films and TV series, but we advise you against going beyond that: the Tab M11 is not ideal for gaming, while even multitasking can prove to be a utopia. However, in our test we found rather significant lag problems after turning on the device, which requires a decidedly high amount of time, as well as during the first setup of the device: once the tablet had performed all the procedures in the background, however, it became fully usable. In general, the fluidity of the system is guaranteed only as long as you do not open too many apps and do not overly stress the memory.
The level of the technical data sheet makes it impossible for us to recommend the device to people power userbut for students the Tab M11 could be perfect: our tests on office apps (the Office suite, for example) did not find any major critical issues, while the presence of pre-installed apps such as Nebo and MyScript Calculator 2 – as well as WPS Office, the main free alternative to the Microsoft suite present on Android – will allow you to immediately start using the tablet for productivity and make the most of the Tab Pen included in the package.
As for the display, it is a 10.95″ IPS unit with 1920×1200 resolution and peak brightness of 400 nits. Furthermore, the screen (excellent for playing multimedia content) boasts TÜV certification against blue light, for maximum eye protection even during crazy and desperate study sessions. TÜV certification which, unfortunately, is also the only one issued for the device, since it lacks any IP rating against water and dust. Lenovo has also thought about an immersive reading mode which emulates the colors of a book to provide an even more comfortable studying experience. Even in handwriting and annotations, the device has nothing to envy of a high-end device: the Tab Pen, in fact, records 4,096 different pressure levelsallowing you not only to scribble lesson notes on a virtual notepad, but also to draw and produce illustrations using the tablet as a real graphics tablet.
The other The sore point of the Lenovo Tab M11 is the softwarewhich unfortunately is anything but updated: at the time of our test (which took place between the beginning and mid-April 2024), the device was updated to Android 13, moreover with security patches that were approximately twelve months old.
It must be said that Lenovo promises it will release Android 14 and 15 for the device – evidently with a certain calm – and that the Tab M11 will enjoy security updates until 2028. It remains to be seen what the frequency of release of the updates will be, however. If the criticality relating to the patches is a flaw that is difficult to ignore, the fact that the operating system is “locked” to Android 13 it is actually less problematic than expected, thanks also to the optimizations implemented by Lenovo in its version of Android, the experience of which remains rather similar to the stock one. We therefore have a menu entirely dedicated to the Tab Pen, as well as a PC mode that allows you to manage applications a bit like you would do with a Windows computergiving a notable boost productivity and allowing multitasking to a certain extent, as long as you don’t overdo it. In fact, what limits the possibility of using multiple apps at the same time is mostly the tablet’s hardware, which however manages to handle a couple of “office” software programs opened in parallel without causing any problems.
