The world of Android tablets is often a little hard to understand. Google’s sole tablet is a portable smart home device with a speaker dock, Samsung’s tablets are vast and difficult to put side-by-side the iPad range. As for the rest, it’s difficult to know where to start, with most models residing at the cheaper end of the market. Well, Lenovo thinks it has something you want with the Lenovo Tab Plus: good sound and lots of it.
The Lenovo Tab Plus is a simple product with a respectable use, that takes cues from the Google Pixel Tablet. Where the Pixel Tablet had a separate dock with great sound, the Tab Plus cuts out the middle man, why have a separate component at all?
As such, the leading line of the Lenovo Tab Plus is that it can both be used to play music like any Android device, or it can also be used as a pairable Bluetooth speaker. Eight Dolby Atmos-enhanced JBL speakers have been stuffed into the device, which explains the noticeable bump down the one landscape side of the tablet. That’s four matrix tweeters and four force-balanced woofers across four speaker boxes. There’s also an integrated kickstand and individual app volume control.
9to5Google made a really great observation that the Tab Plus was capable of outputting 26W of audio, equivalent to a JBL Flip 6 speaker.
Beyond the speaker side, you’ll find that the Tab Plus is mostly just a mid-range tablet. It’s powered by a MediaTek G99 Octa Core CPU, with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage (the 128GB model isn’t listed on the Australian website).
There’s a headphone jack and a MicroSD card slot. Both cameras (one back, one selfie) are 8MP, and the device charges at a capacity of up to 45W, and has an 8,600mAh battery. Lenovo claims it can charge all the way from 0 to 100 per cent in 90 minutes.
The screen operates at 90hz and a 2000×1200 resolution, with a 11.5-inch size and a peak brightness of 400 nits. Again, coming for the Pixel Tablet’s lunch, the Lenovo Tab Plus has a standby mode when charging that transforms the device into a picture frame – so you can have something nice on display instead of just a black screen when you’re not using it.
I still use the Pixel Tablet that I got in for review last year, and I still love it. The speaker is great for when I’m cooking in the kitchen, and I have it now set up in my lounge room, acting as a picture frame when I’m not using it, and a smart home controller for when I want to turn things on and off. So I’m at least a little bit interested in what Lenovo’s doing here.
As for pricing, the Lenovo Tab Plus will start at $549 in Australia and is available from Lenovo online from August.
Image: Lenovo