Highly Capable Tablet Android Features – Technology News, Firstpost | Tech Reddy

Mehul Ruben Das15 Oct 2022 18:04:18 IST

Advantages:
– Performance
– Display
– Four speakers by JBL
– Premium look, lightweight design
– Great value for money

Disadvantages:
– The rear camera could be better
– Android’s tablet ecosystem is frustrated

Rating: 3.75/5

The price is:
– Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) + Precision Pen 3: Rs 39,999
– P11 Pro Keyboard: Rs 5,499

Lenovo seems to have cracked the formula for making really good Android tablets, and if you look at other manufacturers’ offerings, you’ll realize it’s not easy. Recently launched in India, the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen), the newest offering in their lineup, certainly makes it clear to everyone why Lenovo has a strong foothold in the Android tablet market, especially in India.

Android tablets tend to be hit or miss. In many cases, manufacturers do not understand the users in India, who often use tablets instead of laptops. Hence, performance is highly prioritized. Fortunately, Lenovo understands this. Perhaps that’s why the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) ticks all the right boxes for someone looking for a solid Android tablet that can be used not only for content consumption, but also for serious productivity.

Design and construction
The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Generation) is a very elegant looking machine, and very stylish as well. Starting at the back, you get a dual-tone back panel that’s glass-like and has minimal Lenovo and Dolby logos. The back panel also has a magnetic section that holds the Precision Pen 3.

The rear camera body is very thin and has very few bumps. When used with a leather cover for the back, the camera hump goes into an even deeper groove. The bottom of the leather upholstery is curved outwards to double as a stand.

Our test unit came with a leather back cover as well as an optional ThinkPad keyboard cover. Thanks to the magnets on the tablet, both the back cover and the keyboard folio hang in place.

Coming to the buttons, you get a power button and a pair of speakers at the top along with the SIM tray. On the right side you get a pair of voluminous rockers. On the left side, we see some holes to hold the keyboard folio in place and some keyboard connectors. At the bottom we see the USB-C port and another pair of speakers.

On the front, you won’t see any cutouts or holes. Instead, you get slightly thinner bezels. On the right side, you can see the front camera, which is hidden in the frame.

At no point during our testing did we feel that the tablet was glossy. The Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) is really well built and feels very solid to hold. Considering the tablet weighs around 480 grams, it lacks a folio and Precision stylus, which is also a very impressive feat.

Driving the tablet every day
Let’s start with the display. You get an 11.2-inch 2.5K OLED display with a resolution of 2560X1536 pixels and an aspect ratio of 15:9. The panel receives HDR, Dolby Vision, HDR10+ certifications and covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The panel has a refresh rate of 120 Hz and a touch pattern of 360 Hz. It also supports brightness up to 600nits.

All this adds up to amazing picture quality with incredibly sharp images, crisp and clean colors, just the right saturation and contrast levels – basically, you get a very vivid picture. Of course, it’s great to consume content, whether it’s Netflix or YouTube.

The screen is large enough to have a great time watching videos, and you can continue watching one show or movie for hours after the next. The good thing is that the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) comes with TÜV Rheinland Full Care display certification, which makes it less harsh on the eyes.

Lenovo is bundling the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) with Precision Pen 3 for free and offering the ThinkPad Keyboard folio at Rs 5,499. We seriously recommend you get a tablet and keyboard – you’ll have a much better and more rounded experience.

The Precision Pen 3 is indeed compatible with the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen). It can register changes in pressure and reflect it when you’re drawing it on a screen, or using it to create digital art. There is almost no lag between the pen and the tablet, so you get a very realistic experience.

On the other hand, the keyboard makes using the tablet as a laptop much more convenient and really allows the tablet’s multitasking potential to work. Other than that, typing on the keyboard is very simple and, I must say, enjoyable. The only complaint we have against the keyboard is that it’s not backlit, but that’s nitpicking for us.

Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) has done a very good job with the sound system. You get a set of four speakers that get really loud and distort the highs. The sound of the tablet is enough to fill a large room during a party. After all, they are made by JBL and optimized for Dolby Atmos. It goes without saying that consuming content is also amazing. Note that you don’t have a 3.5mm jack. You’ll need to use a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter to listen to your wired headphones or use the BlueTooth option.

As for the cameras, you get a 13 MP sensor on the back and an 8 MP sensor on the front. The rear cameras aren’t accurate, but don’t expect the photos or videos from the rear camera to blow you away – if you’re in a hurry and just need something to snap a photo with, it’ll get the job done. The front-facing camera is again perfect for your Zoom or Google Meet meetings. It’s safe to say that it does a pretty good job of recognizing faces for face unlock – it’s quick, snappy and doesn’t miss very often.

As for the software side of things, we get the usual features of using Android L. Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) comes with Android 12L. As mentioned above, to get the most out of your tablet’s multitasking capabilities, you should have a ThinkPad keyboard accessory. Switching between apps is buttery smooth, even when you have multiple apps and multiple windows open. We were able to open about 20 tabs with Google, Chrome, and various other apps, and the tablet still showed no signs of slowing down. Switching between the keyboard and the Precision Pen 3 was again very smooth.

However, there are some issues. Despite Google’s best efforts, there are some problems with creating Android for tablets. Yes, the Tablet version of Android has some advantages over iPadOS, but there’s a reason why Apple dominates the tablet market. The Android tablet app ecosystem is pretty rough. Some of the apps I use regularly aren’t optimized for Android tablets. This leads to some annoying scaling and sometimes weird orientation issues. This, in turn, hurts devices like the Tab P11 Pro, but they have the hardware to go the distance.

Lenovo says that it supports the next 2 generations of Android i.e. up to Android 14 on the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) and provides security updates for 3 years, so this is a major plus point for them.

Performance
Now, let’s look at the performance. Tab P11 Pro (2nd Generation) comes with MediaTek Kompanio 1300T chipset paired with Mali G77 MC9 GPU. Our test unit had 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Lenovo says the reason they went for the MediaTek Kompanio 1300T SoC is to keep the device 5G ready and give it the chops it needs for gaming. And shows.

Without NFS: Limits, we were getting 120 fps at the best possible settings, while in Apex Legends we were consistently getting 95 fps.

It performed really well when rendering images in Adobe Lightroom and exporting videos using Adobe Premiere Rush. The MediaTek Kompanio 1300T also performed well in benchmarks.

On Geekbench, the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) scored an OpenCL score of 4745. It scored 748 in single-threaded performance and 2770 in multi-threaded tests. It had the best cycle score ever in 3D Mark’s Wild Life Stress Test. 3028, and its lowest cycle score was 2192, which is very impressive and shows that it can handle sustained loads.

It got a little hot during stress tests and long gaming sessions, but that’s to be expected. In no case did the device heat up as it should.

Battery
The 8000 mAh battery that comes with the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) is pretty solid. Lenovo is using a smart battery management system that doesn’t compromise performance just to give you a few extra hours of use. I got about 14-15 hours of battery life, including plenty of time spent on YouTube, Netflix, and a few long gaming sessions.

In normal, day-to-day office use, with the Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) paired with the Precision Pen and Keyboard, we managed 16 hours of battery life. The best part is the battery life of the device. In our testing, we found it went from 10 cents to 100 percent in just over 50 minutes, which is impressive for a tablet.

Verdict
If you’re only looking for an Android tablet for content consumption, there are cheaper alternatives that provide a somewhat similar visual and audio experience. But if productivity and gaming are important considerations, this is “THE” tablet you’re looking at. Under Rs 50,000, there are very few options that can hold a candle to the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen).

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this tablet to anyone, especially if they’re looking for something compact and don’t want to carry around a full-sized laptop. The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) is what Chromebooks were meant to be all along, and hopefully the upcoming Pixel Tablet will be, at least in spirit.