Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 Review: 8-inch Mini-Tablet is a Gaming Monster

With the Legion Tab Gen 3, Lenovo launched a new 8.8-inch gaming tablet with high-end performance that has almost no competition. Most other manufacturers only release small budget tablets—the only exceptions are this Lenovo and the iPad Mini 7, of course, which we used for comparison.

So how good is this mini-tablet, and can it really replace a gaming console? To find out, we played tons of games and carefully reviewed the pen, display, speakers, and software.

Design and Build Quality

We start with the design. From the outside, this small tablet looks quite nice. It has a premium full-metal body, well-built buttons that sit firmly, and generally very solid build quality.

On the back, there‘s a rectangular camera module.

The only issue we have is that the transition from the body to the display glas is not as smooth, there‘s some plastic in between. Premium devices from Apple and Samsung do this better.

Still, the Legion Tab Gen 3 feels high-quality. With the additional plastic case, it gains even more grip and feels better in the hand. The integrated slots in that case help with cooling.

It’s pretty cool that it has two USB-C ports, and one can even connect to an external monitor.

Performance and Hardware

Inside, there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage.

There are no other storage options, which is a bit disappointing. But at least 256GB is plenty. The processor is the fastest currently available in Android tablets.

This shows clearly in the Geekbench benchmark test, where the Legion Tab Gen 3 achieves CPU performances similar to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ and even slightly surpasses it in GPU tests. Compared to the predecessor, the Legion Tab Gen 2, it’s a big improvement. It also competes well with its 8-inch premium competitor, the iPad Mini 7, though Apple’s graphics performance is better.

Multitasking across multiple apps works smoothly, although managing them is less comfortable on a small screen. It handles demanding apps like Adobe Premiere Rush and a 3D tool we used for designing very well.

It supports WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.1. It’s a shame that there’s no 5G version, as that would have allowed it to replace a smartphone. There’s also no SD card slot for expanding storage.

Gaming Test

Now we get to the most important part. Since the tablet is primarily marketed for gaming—it should excel here.

And indeed, the Legion Tab Gen 3 delivers excellent gaming performance.

The 3D Mark benchmark test confirms the Geekbench results. Lenovo competes closely with the Samsung S10 Ultra and beats the iPad Mini 7 in all three tests. It’s a significant improvement over its predecessor.

Lenovo has integrated a game assistant and a gaming hub called Legion Hub, through which all games are launched. It also shows a live display of the CPU and GPU usage and temperature.

The hub tries to imitate a console feeling but doesn’t offer much else right now. The game assistant is more interesting. It can appear as an overlay by swiping from the side in any game and serves as a quick settings control center.

You can easily adjust brightness and volume, check WiFi latency, activate a floating monitoring display showing FPS, temperature, CPU/GPU stats, and switch between three performance modes: energy-saving, balanced, and performance.

But our gaming highlight is another feature: through the game assistant, you can activate bypass charging when connected to a charger. This feeds power directly to the motherboard without charging the battery.

This is useful for gaming, as it prevents the battery from heating up, which also affects processor temperature positively and is protecting the battery. A really cool feature.

We tested several games at maximum graphic settings in performance mode, checking if bypass charging improves performance during extended play, as FPS usually drop over time due to heating. Here are the results:

Call of Duty Warfare:

• Without bypass charging: 70-80 FPS, after about 30 minutes 50-60 FPS

• With bypass charging: steady 80 FPS, after 30 minutes 70-80 FPS

PubG Mobile:

• Without bypass charging: 60 FPS, drops after about 30 minutes

• With bypass charging: constant 60 FPS (stable temperature)

Fortnite (max. 90 FPS):

• Without bypass charging: 90 FPS, drops to 60 FPS after 30 minutes

• With bypass charging: 90 FPS, after about 45 minutes 70-80 FPS

Alien Isolation (max. 30 FPS):

• Constant 30 FPS with or without bypass charging

For comparison, we tested Call of Duty Warfare on a Xiaomi 15 smartphone with the Snapdragon 8 Elite. It initially reaches over 100 FPS but quickly heats up and drops to 60 FPS. With the Legion Tab, you can play longer at higher FPS.

Read: Xiaomi Redmi Pad Pro Review: Great Gaming Tablet At A Budget

Display

Aside from performance, the display is crucial for gaming. Lenovo uses a 2.5K IPS panel with 2560×1600 pixels in a 16:10 aspect ratio.

That’s an excellent resolution for an 8.8-inch tablet, especially since most 8-inch Android tablets don‘t even offer FullHD. Colors look good for a modern IPS display, although there’s a slight blue tint. You can balance this in settings.

Colors change significantly when switching the default “Vibrant” mode to “Standard.” We found the latter much more pleasant and natural.

Comparing the Legion Tab Gen 3 with the iPad Mini 7, both displays look very similar. At maximum brightness, both reach about 500 nits—good but could be brighter for outdoor use. Unfortunately, there’s no brighter competition.

The maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz is excellent for action games. The iPad Mini only has 60 Hz and a noticeable jelly effect, which the Lenovo doesn‘t have because of its 165 Hz.

Speakers

We were pleasantly surprised by the speakers. There are two stereo speakers at the top and bottom, which sound quite good.

Compared to the iPad Mini 7, the speakers are louder but less clear and balanced.

Especially in games, they provide a noticeably above-average 3D sound experience. Dolby Atmos is supported in Dynamic, Movie, and Music modes and can be adjusted via an equalizer in Music mode. Bass could be better, but overall performance is solid.

While playing Alien Isolation, we could clearly identify the origin of each sound, enhancing the gaming experience significantly.

It’s unfortunate there’s no headphone jack, but you can use USB-C headphones instead.

Read: Lenovo Tab Plus Review: The Best Tablet For Music Lovers?

Battery Life

In our battery test, we were positively surprised. Playing an HD YouTube video at maximum brightness, the battery lasted 8.5 hours. Compared to the iPad Mini 7, which only lasted 5.5 hours, this is significantly better.

Software

The Legion Tab Gen 3 runs Android 14 with Lenovo’s ZUI 16. Lenovo promises three years of system updates, meaning Android updates up to Android 17. Security updates are promised for four years.

This sounds decent, though we would have preferred if it shipped with Android 15, which is already rolling out slowly.

We’ve mentioned gaming features already. Otherwise, it’s standard Android. There’s a desktop mode similar to Samsung DeX, though less extensive. But it‘s useful if you connect an external monitor and want to get some work done.

Stylus

Lenovo offers the Tab Pen Plus separately. It’s a lightweight stylus that connects via Bluetooth and charges via USB-C.

Simple note-taking works fine and it is pressure sensitive. However, the button is unreliable and often lags. We also noticed this on the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro which has the same pen.

If you must have an 8-inch Android tablet, it’s usable for notes, but better avoid Lenovo’s built-in notes app. We recommend Noteshelf 3 and Nebo instead. The Apple Pencil Pro is much, much better together with iPad Mini 7, by the way. If the pen is most important for you, we only recommend that one.

Camera

The main camera has 13 megapixels and takes solid, sharp images. It’s great for capturing documents.

There’s also a 2-megapixel macro lens that you can access in the camera app’s macro mode. Anyone planning macro photography with their tablet will enjoy it to a degree but it‘s kind of a useless feature on a tablet.

The front camera has 8 megapixels and sits on the side when the tablet is in landscape mode. So you won’t be perfectly centered in video calls, but the quality is solid.

Final Verdict

The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 definitely is a fantastic gaming tablet. The fast 165 Hz screen combined with the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, good speakers, and solid battery life are great. We particularly liked the gaming-specific features like bypass charging.

It’s also an excellent choice if you’re looking for a small, premium 8 to 9-inch Android tablet. If you want something high-quality with Android, this is currently your only option. Its size also makes it a great choice as an e-book, comic, or magazine reader.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a fingerprint reader or a 5G option. Also, the pen could be better. If these features are your priority and you don’t specifically need a gaming tablet, definitely check out our review of the iPad Mini 7—we even found a pretty good keyboard for it.