The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro is a new entry in the premium Android tablet market. It is taking on the top-tier option from Samsung, the Tab S7. It has an 11-inch OLED screen, high-end design, quad-speakers and a snap-on keyboard, cover and stylus in the box.
Read: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Review: Featherweight Fighter
The Android tablet world has been completely overshadowed by the dominance of the iPad range. Lenovo hopes to upturn the status-quo with the Tab P11 Pro as it aims to fix the biggest problem with Android tablets – the software has never been ideal for productivity. In our in-depth Lenovo Tab P11 Pro review we investigate whether it can take over the Android crown, but more importantly, can it compete with the iPad.
Design
For many years, the domain of the Android tablet has been mostly populated by cheap-feeling, plastic, boring devices. When you open the box of the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro that idea is immediately set aside – it looks and feels more premium than any other Android tablet on the market today and on par with any iPad.
It has a full aluminium unibody design, with sharp chamfered edges reminiscent of some of our favourite phone designs ever. It feels unlike any other Android tablet you can buy, much more like the tanks of the past like the much-loved Nokia phones.
The back of the device has an interesting tone-on-tone design with the noticeable antenna lines, not trying to hide its ambitions as a workhorse. It has rounded corners and four speaker grills – two on each side to deliver that surround sound experience when consuming content.
The thin, smooth design is something to behold, but it is light enough to use with a single hand at the same time.
The accessories are also built extremely well. The cover snaps on satisfyingly with impressive magnets and includes a very strong kickstand. It has an artificial fibre weave which is very resistant to damage and easy to clean at the same time. The keyboard connects to the tablet at the bottom with a set of magnetic pins, which means you don’t need to fiddle with Bluetooth connectivity here.
While the keyboard feels similar to what you would find on other Lenovo products, the included trackpad isn’t great. It feels mushy and at times, unresponsive. It is tricky to use and not a great design decision. Seeing it is a tablet which includes touch capabilities, we would’ve preferred dropping it in favour of an additional row of keys on the keyboard for more functionality.
The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro also has smart pen functionality included, although it isn’t on the level of Samsung’s S-Pen. It has 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and works well as a pen. If you’re an artist you might be better off looking elsewhere, however.
The omission of a 3.5mm headphone jack may be a negative to many, especially as the Tab P11 Pro is touted as a ‘pro’ device.
Overall, this is the nicest looking and feeling designs we have ever used in an Android tablet. It feels expensive, much more so than it actually is.
Display
As with almost any smart device these days, the screen will always be an extremely important past of the overall package. In tablets even more so, as it is more likely to be used as a content consumption machine than any smartphone. The fact that Lenovo opted for a bright OLED display on the Tab P11 Pro drives that point home, and it pays off.
This display can compete with any other tablet on the market, hands down. It is a bright, sharp 1600 x 2560 resolution panel with impressive contrast and colour saturation. That means it is an absolute dream for watching content of all varieties.
The display is HDR capable, with infinite blacks as a result of the OLED technology, which is self-illuminating. It makes content come alive. You can also use the Tab P11 Pro as a second display from another workstation, which is actually very useful due to its sharpness.
The only gripe we have with it is that it doesn’t have a high refresh rate – it comes with the standard 60Hz. While that isn’t an issue when viewing content, you do notice it when using the software and multitasking if you are used to a premium smartphone display that is capable of 120Hz refresh rates. It will also be noticeable if you are planning to use it as a gaming device, which it is certainly capable of.
Its viewing angles are great, but we would’ve expected it to be better in direct sunlight. It wasn’t bad, but at times the brightness couldn’t cope with very bright conditions.
Camera
Yes yes, we know. Camera performance isn’t the most important part of a tablet – who takes photos on tablets? However, when you are touting it as a ‘pro’ product and include multiple cameras on the back, it invites perceptions of premium camera quality.
The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro has two cameras on the back and two on the front. Unfortunately, all of the qualities we have started to expect from a premium mobile device’s camera is lacking here. Detail, colour saturation, contrast and dynamic range is all lacklustre at best.
The biggest disappointment is at low-light. The cameras are near unusable outside of optimal light conditions.
The selfie cameras aren’t any better either, which is surprising when the company decides to include two of them for different situations. Rather just use the phone in your pocket.
Performance
As is the case with build quality, you don’t often expect great performance from today’s Android tablets. Again, this is where the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro is forging its own path. It is trying to compete with smaller laptops as a utility machine.
The tablet comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G, which is capable of handling most tasks without any issues. It might not be the top-of-the-line mobile chipset, but with the included 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage it doesn’t often disappoint.
The problem comes in when you are trying some proper multitasking. As mentioned before, the Android capabilities when it comes to tablet multi-functionality still leaves a lot to be desired. Lenovo has tried to get around that with some interesting new software additions.
However, the smart multitasking mode when the keyboard is connected leaves much to be desired. It feel extremely cumbersome and not completely thought through. Apps don’t always function as they should and using the trackpad as a mouse just doesn’t deliver the productivity that you would hope for with such a device. If you would want to use multiple Microsoft Office apps, for example, it can struggle.
The battery is a completely different story, however. It blows all expectations out of the water for a tablet of this kind. In standby mode, the Tab P11 Pro would sometime only drop one or two percentage points overnight. Otherwise, in full use, the battery lasts about 10 hours.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro is a very interesting tablet that should not be overlooked. It has every premium feature you would expect at this price point, and even undercuts the Samsung tablets trying to achieve the same thing.
It is magnificent as a content consumption machine, better so than anything else on the market.
However, if you were hoping to replace your laptop with this machine, best to look elsewhere. It isn’t a flaw within the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro, but rather the capabilities of the Android underpinning keeping it back from a full multitasking behemoth. This is by design, however, as Google’s Chromebooks are much better suited at this function.
All said and done, we would recommend this tablet to anyone looking for a great Android unit. It is the cream of the crop at the moment.
