Lenovo Tab P11 Plus tablet review verdict: Potential unfortunately wasted, but there is hope

The Tab P11 Plus reveals a good overall package in our detailed review of the Lenovo tablet. The aluminum chassis gives the mid-range tablet a certain premium feel, and we are also impressed by the quality of the sound and the display as well as by the battery life of the approximately $300 tablet. In addition, Lenovo equips its Android tablet with four contact elements at the bottom of the case, which can be used for data transfer as well as for charging the optional magnetic keyboard cover. The Tab P11 Plus also supports the optionally available Lenovo Precision Pen 2 and its 4,096 pressure levels. Especially the last two features are often not available in low-priced tablets.

This makes it all the more annoying that the Chinese manufacturer has wasted some potential in the form of software shortcomings. We see the biggest deficit in the system speed. The Tab P11 Plus is based on the MediaTek Helio G90T, an SoC manufactured in a 12 nm process that consists of an eight-CPU core group. Two powerful Cortex-A76 cores are contrasted by a Cortex-A55 cluster used for low-power tasks.

In our review sample, Lenovo's mid-range tablet utilizes 6 GB of LPDDR4x RAM, which doesn't only lead to system lags during multitasking tasks. A lot of stuttering has to be tolerated in everyday use, and animations often fail to look smooth. Notable choppiness can also be experienced when performing simple tasks, such as opening the multitasking view. Even switching from landscape to portrait mode sometimes pushes the Tab P11 Plus to its performance limits. The app is only displayed on the top two-thirds of the display here, while the home screen is displayed on the bottom - in this case, it's not possible to use the device for several seconds. Opening the keyboard can also require a tedious second.

In addition, the user can only be authenticated via facial recognition with the front-facing camera in the Tab P11 Plus - unlocking the device using biometric fingerprint identification is not possible. However, facial recognition often doesn't work reliably in everyday use, which negatively impacts the convenience of using the device in a considerable manner.

Both the system lags and the shortcomings when unlocking the tablet leave room for improvement in future software updates. After all, the Helio G90T's performance shouldn't be the cause for the very mediocre system speed. 

Do you care a lot about pen input in an Android tablet and are you looking for a low-priced mid-range device? If so, you can get a detailed impression of the Tab P11 Plus in our comprehensive review of the Lenovo tablet.