Lenovo Tab M11 Review: Great Bargain, But One Thing Bothers Me

The Lenovo Tab M11 offers a surprisingly good price-performance ratio. For a tablet around $200, we get a stylish 11-inch display, pretty good performance, and it even includes an active pen. I tested the tablet for six weeks and during this time I really liked the Tab M11. I think it’s particularly great that it will receive software updates by January 2028. But I was disappointed with the stylus.

For my test, I compared the M11 with the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ , Lenovo Tab P11 Gen 2 and the Amazon Fire HD 10 2023 . These are three direct competitors with which it has to compete.

Design and Build Quality

Compared to the competition, the Lenovo Tab M11 performs quite well in terms of design and build quality. The casing is made entirely of aluminum, which makes it feel noticeably higher quality than the Fire HD 10 2023 and Galaxy Tab A9+. It feels sturdily built and makes a good impression.

The only thing that isn’t perfect is the transition from the display to the housing, where a bit of plastic was added. But that’s normal in this price range.

The weight of 465g is also typical and it is 7.15mm thin.

You’ll find an eight-megapixel camera on the back, which takes surprisingly good photos and videos for the price when there is enough light. The eight-megapixel webcam is also quite usable.

You can also unlock it using facial recognition via the front camera. While this works well, it is not as secure as a fingerprint reader. The facial recognition system lacks a secondary depth sensor, making it a less-than-ideal facial recognition method.

On the sides, we get a power button, two volume controls, and a microSD card slot . It also has a USB C 2.0 port and a normal headphone jack.

I tested the audio port with very cheap headphones and the sound with them is better than the tablet’s eight speakers. But that’s almost always the case. In fact, the M11’s speakers are really good compared to the competition.

Although the Galaxy Tab A9+ is a lot louder, the sound from Lenovo sounds noticeably more pleasant – even at the same volume. The sound is also significantly better than the Fire HD 10 and about on par with the P11 Gen 2.

Display: 11 Inch

The Lenovo Tab M11 has an 11-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. Roughly speaking , we get FullHD on 11 inches and that is high resolution enough.

My test showed that the display is overall very solid, but not perfect. It’s fully laminated and the viewing angles are nice and wide. I think it’s bright enough for indoors, but I would like the display to be a bit brighter for outside. And the two competitors from Samsung and Amazon are actually a little brighter.

When Lenovo announced the Tab M11, it was advertised as having a 90Hz screen. However, you can no longer see any of this on the official website or in the settings. So I installed a tool to measure the frequency – and sure enough, the Tab M11’s display supports up to 90Hz, you just can’t configure it yourself.

Display-wise, it is just as well positioned as the Galaxy Tab A9+ and Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE, but the Lenovo Tab P11 Gen 2 is one step ahead with its 120Hz display.

Lenovo Stylus: Active pen is included

I think it’s pretty great that for the price about $200, an active stylus is included, which is called the Lenovo Tab Pen. The pen is about the size of a ballpoint pen, has no additional buttons and is powered by a AAAA battery, which is included.

The pen works exactly as you’d expect: it’s pressure sensitive, can be used for drawing and handwritten notes, and ignores the palm of your hand when resting it on the touchscreen. Sounds good.

There are also some good functions built into the software. You can take screenshots and label them, and Nebo is a good note-taking app pre-installed .

However, when I compared the pen with Samsung tablets with the S Pen and iPads with the Apple Pencil, I noticed that my handwriting didn’t look as precise on the Tab M11 as on the others. My handwriting also looks much better on the Lenovo Tab P12 and Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2.

Unfortunately, this is typical in this price range; the pen is simply not as precise as many more expensive competitors. I suspect that this is not the pen itself, but rather the touchscreen.

Plus, with the M11’s pen you are actually a little less precise than with the Amazon Fire HD 10 2023 with USI 2 pen. I compared the two very intensively and the Amazon one is slightly better. Combined, the tablet and pen cost about the same.

Overall, the pen is okay, but not good. It’s definitely good enough to do a little drawing and painting with, as long as it’s not your job. It’s good enough for signing documents and also jotting down a few notes here and there.

However, I think that the pen is not good enough if you want to use it to frequently write down handwritten notes. I cannot recommend the tablet’s pen function for schoolchildren and students. At this point, it is simply worth spending more and buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite 2022 (or 2024 version, when it comes out) or a cheap iPad.  This can always be a used device.

Hardware And Performance

The Lenovo Tab M11 has a MediaTek Helio G88 processor, which is supported by 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. There is also a version with LTE and SIM card slot . 

The M11 was originally announced with an 8GB RAM version and with optional 64GB storage. Further storage configurations may come onto the market.

The fact that we get 128GB of storage as standard for around $200 is definitely great, because most competitors only offer 64GB at this price.

In my Geekbench 5 benchmark comparison, you can see that the performance of the Lenovo Tab M11 is slightly weaker than the Galaxy Tab A9+ and Lenovo Tab P11 Gen 2 – although both are also a bit more expensive. The processor performance of the cheaper Amazon Fire HD 10 2023 is slightly better, but Lenovo’s graphics performance is stronger.

What’s also exciting is that the performance of the Tab M11 is a good deal better than the Lenovo Tab M10 Gen 3 . But the Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 is a bit stronger.

In the 3D Mark Wild Life test, it performs about as well as the Lenovo Tab M9, M10 Plus Gen 3 and Amazon Fire HD 10 2023. This benchmark tests graphics performance and the A9+ and P11 Gen 2 are a lot better at this point .

In my six weeks with the Lenovo Tab M11, I was pleasantly surprised by its real-world performance. Common apps run smoothly and there is also some multitasking and multitasking in PC mode. Above all, the performance of the system as a whole is solid.

But you can’t expect top performance like with a premium tablet. If you have an expensive smartphone and want to switch between demanding apps just as smoothly on the M11, you will be disappointed. This is still an entry-level tablet and my gaming test shows that.

PUBG Mobile runs wonderfully with HD settings, but you can’t even select higher ones. Unlike the Galaxy Tab A9+, Fortnite is not supported at all.

However, Genshin Impact runs quite smoothly with medium to slightly higher graphics. It’s definitely playable. You can play most games on the M11, but often not at the highest graphics settings.

Software: Towards Android 15

The Tab M11 runs Android 13 out of the box and is powered by ZUI, a slightly customized interface from Lenovo. I think it’s great that Lenovo promises to update the tablet up to Android 15 and it will even receive security updates by January 2028. Lenovo has improved significantly on this point, as in the past they often only released one major update.

I generally like the software very much. On the one hand, because the Android interface only changes minimally, but also because some exciting features are pre-installed. This includes PC mode, which is a type of desktop mode. It works well and is practical if you connect a mouse and keyboard.

Lenovo Freestyle also works pretty well. This allows you to easily transfer files between your PC and tablet, but also stream apps to your PC. So you can use Android apps on your PC.

But I find it even more practical that with Freestyle that you can use your Lenovo tablet as a second external monitor for your PC. Since the connection is wireless via WLAN, your Android display has a lot of lag and it is not so pleasant to work actively with it. But this is practical if you want to do something running on the side that is a little more static. Such as a Twitter feed or a news feed.

Battery Life

In my battery test, the Lenovo Tab M11 lasted 7.5 hours. For this test, I always run an HD YouTube video in an endless loop at maximum brightness.

You can see that the battery life of the Amazon Fire HD 10 2023 is significantly longer, even though it has a brighter display. The runtime of the A9+ and M11, however, is roughly the same because the A9+ is also brighter.

Lenovo Tab M11 Review: My Conclusion

So can I recommend the Lenovo Tab M11? Yes. In fact, I think the price-performance ratio is pretty good. It’s well made, the performance is good for the price and I like that we get updates for such a long time. The speakers are great and we get a good entertainment tablet with which you can also play a game or two.

I also think it’s nice that we get quite a bit of storage space with 128GB. This is often a problem with cheap devices.

The display is good, but not perfect, as it could be brighter and is therefore not so suitable for outdoor use.

My opinion on the pen, however, is double edged. On the one hand, it’s great that it’s included, because including the pen, the M11 is pretty good value. At the same time, it’s not suitable if you want to keep a daily diary – for many handwritten notes, there are better alternatives out there. But it is sufficient for drawing and painting, for signatures and doodles. At least if you don’t have high expectations.

A really exciting alternative is the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+, which I have already mentioned several times and of course already tested. It has a brighter display and the performance is slightly better. However, it does not support a pen and the build quality is poorer. Be sure to check out my review.