Lenovo Tab review – 10-inch tablet as an affordable alternative for school, college, and the living room

The Lenovo Tab mainly impresses with its great display: For its price class, it offers a high resolution and high contrast with its low black value. It is also free from PWM flickering and even reaches a fairly high color accuracy. It only isn't very comfortable to use outdoors, since the maximum brightness around 430 cd/m² is too low for that.

We also like the stereo speakers with their well-rounded sound and the capability of locating the tablet via satellite – even it isn't always 100% accurate. The metal case shows high-quality workmanship, although it doesn't really protect the display from pressure very much.

At a price around 150 Euros (~$157), you cannot expect a lot of power, and some of the competitors still offer slightly more here. You also shouldn't depend on a lot of security, since the period of software updates is unsure. Another negative point is the slightly smaller battery: although it still offers an acceptable battery life, you get more endurance with other tablets in this price range.

If you can live with these restrictions, you have an elegant tablet with a good display and decent speakers at an affordable price here.

Although the Lenovo Tab (TB311FU) isn't available in the US at the time of the test, it is announced for many global markets in Europe, Asia, Central and South America, and Africa. For example, the tablet with 64 GB of storage is available directly from Lenovo in the UK for around £140.

The Lenovo Tab (model number TB311FU or TB311XU) is meant for all those who don't want to spend too much money for a tablet while still getting a high-quality metal case, high-resolution display, and decent speakers. In addition, there is also an option to expand the storage via microSD card, and the tablet even supports locating its position via satellite.

With its 10.1-inch display, the Lenovo Tab isn't very large, so even children can enjoy using it for learning or entertainment.

The case of the Lenovo Tab is made of a metal-unibody and currently only available in Luna Gray color. Since the location of the antennas is not apparent on the case, we guess that they are behind the lighter area around the camera, which is made from plastic, so there would be less shielding from the metal.

The case shows clean workmanship, and the transitions to the display glass can hardly be felt by the fingers. With its rounded corners, the tablet is also comfortable to hold in the hand. However, some pressure or trying to warp the tablet can quickly lead to some display artifacts in the liquid crystal of the screen.

At 424 grams (~15 oz), the tablet is relatively light, and the 10.1-inch screen also makes it fairly compact. The display bezels are slim enough to give it a modern look, while at the same time offering enough room for the fingers to hold the tablet in the hand without accidentally operating the touchscreen.

Since there is no IP-certification, you should avoid using the tablet in dusty or wet conditions or getting water on it.

The tablet storage can be expanded via microSD card. When we test the speed of the reader using our Angelbird V60 reference storage card, we measure decent transfer rates around 40 MB/s, and there are also hardly any drops in the CPDT benchmark.

So you can easily use the microSD card to store your data files, since the data will be available relatively quickly.

The packaging of the Lenovo Tab doesn't include any plastics. But otherwise, there is no information on the CO2 footprint of the device, or the materials used.

At this point, replacement parts aren't available (yet) for private customers.

The fastest WLAN standard supported by our test unit is WiFi 5. With this, the Lenovo Tab reaches speeds between 237 and 346 Mb/s in our WLAN test as can be expected. This also means that the transfer rates vary within a certain range, but overall they are relatively stable in the tests with our Asus ROG Rapture AXE11000 reference router.

For those who have a Gigabit Internet connection at home or a fiber-optic connection at the office, the offered transfer speeds won't be sufficient, but everyone else can make relatively good use of their Internet connection with this. 

Close to the router, we see a full reception signal, and websites render at an acceptable speed. However, at a 10-meter (~33 ft) distance from the access point and through 3 walls, the signal strength drops by half and the speed rendering web pages noticeably drops even further. 

We test the main camera again in our test lab. Under full studio illumination, the color reproduction is fairly warm. But in the detail, small text is hardly readable anymore, and the camera also has some problems with red backgrounds. The image sharpness is at a medium level at best.

The box of the Lenovo Tab doesn't include a charger, but a USB-C cable and a tool to open the microSD card slot.

At Lenovo's web shop, you can find protective cases for the tablet that also serve as a tablet stand. In addition, there is also a very robust bumper case for kids that includes a stylus for easier operation.

Lenovo offers 24 months of warranty for the Lenovo Tab.

Lenovo uses a MediaTek Helio G85 as the SoC here. It is already 5 years old but was originally used in the mid-range. Although this makes the Lenovo Tab adequately equipped for its price class in 2025, you can also get tablets that offer a significantly higher performance for only little more money.

When you surf through the system, you have to expect some stutters and wait times, particularly if some more demanding apps are running in the background.

The SoC is also suited for AI computations, delivering a mid-level performance for its price class here.

The graphics computations are rather slow, causing the Lenovo Tab to have problems remaining above 30 fps even in older benchmarks. The tablet is too weak for 1440p or 4K resolutions with modern graphics.

Even with graphics computations in the native resolution of the display, you have to be content with fairly low frame rates.

Streaming of 4K videos on YouTube works without stutters, and we only see the occasional hick-up right after loading a video.

When surfing the Internet, you need to bring some patience from time to time: Larger websites can take fairly long until they are fully loaded. 

Even within its price class and using a modern browser, our test unit is only able to reach one of the places in the middle or back of the field in the browser benchmarks.

Slow eMMC flash has to be sufficient as storage of the Lenovo Tab, and other tablets such as the Cubot Tab 50 show that you can get more modern storage even in this price class.

This means that you have to expect some longer load times and rather slow results when transferring files.

Under longer load, we measure a maximum temperature of 33.5 °C (92.3 °F) on the case of the tablet. While this is just barely noticeable, it is by no means critical. So we can give high marks to the temperature management of the tablet.

This is also noticeable in the stress tests of 3DMark: Even after 20 runs of the same benchmark, the performance capabilities of the SoC only drops minimally at most.

In terms of its minimum power consumption, the Lenovo Tab isn't particularly efficient, drawing 1.7 watts from the battery. The rest of the consumption values are at an average level, resulting in an overall consumption that isn't too high at a maximum of 7.2 watts.

The tablet can be charged at a maximum of 15 watts, but a corresponding charger is not included. The Lenovo Tab was able to use all the chargers we tested without any problems. It takes about 1:45 hours to completely recharge the tablet.

Once the 5,100-mAh capacity battery is fully charged, you can use the Lenovo Tab for up to 11:45 hours surfing in the WLAN or 12:39 hours watching movies from the internal storage.

While this should be sufficient for a regular day away from the outlet, there are also other tablets such as the Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE 8.7 that last significantly longer. The relatively small battery of the Lenovo Tab becomes noticeable here.