Lenovo Tab Plus review

From the front it may look like a regular tablet. Nothing fancy going on here at all. It’s as unassuming and plain jane as ever, but turn it around and that’s the bulk of it. The bottom bit houses the JBL speaker system which makes it twice the size of the top. 

But Lenovo has engineered it in such a way that your palm rests at that exact position like a purpose built grip. It’s a very clever design and has hints of the Lenovo Yoga series in there. The stand is at the center of the unit and feels really strong and sturdy. Even with its fat bottom, the Tab Plus doesn’t look out of proportion. In fact after a day’s use I started loving the additional grip that the bulge offers. 

The Tab Plus has an IP52 rating so you get water and dust resistance but nothing more. The Tab Plus weighs 650 grams so it does feel a bit heavier than the usual crop of tabs, but its well balanced.

The JBL Hi-Fi Matrix speakers use four tweeters and four units for the lower end making a total output of a cool 26W. We play Wolf Totem by The Who and instantly it is clear that the Lenovo Tab Plus has oodles of definition, detail and isn’t afraid of going loud.

Even when pushed to the max, the Tab Plus’ audio never felt harsh or tinny; neither did it lose a bit of definition in the lower end. We compared it to the Oneplus Tab and the Tab Plus instantly blew it out of the water. The speakers are backed by Dolby Atmos support that you can tune according to your liking. It has Dynamic mode, Movie mode and Music mode, each of which tune the sound output accordingly. You also get a 10 - band equalizer for you to tune the output the way you like it.

It almost sounds like a small dedicated Bluetooth Speaker that you lug around on trips. In fact it may even shame some of the cheaper BT speakers available in the market today. We are confident that the Tab Plus might just be the world’s loudest and best sounding tablet today and we don’t hand over such accolades lightly.

The Tab Plus features an 11.5 2K LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s nothing that will make you go wow nor will it disappoint you in any way. It’s pretty sharp and gets bright enough for use in an outdoor environment. Watching movies and Netflix series on this is a joy thanks to the added immersion of the speakers. 

In terms of performance the Tab Plus features a Mediatek Helio 99 chip that is great to get basic tasks done. Browsing, a bit of writing, checking mails and very light gaming are handled well by the chip. It doesn’t even get that hot unless you throw something like Call of Duty at it with ultra high settings.

The Tab Plus elbows the competition out of the way and steals the crown for the best entertainment device overall. At this price we are pretty sure no other tablet comes close to the audio quality that the Tab Plus gives you. Throw in a decent display, an 8600mAh battery that lasts you a full day and you won’t need much else. If you are a heavy gamer or expect to do some heavy editing work, we’d ask you to look elsewhere. For entertainment and some light work and gaming the Tab Plus takes the crown.