Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 Review: A Bitter Disappointment?

The Lenovo Tab M8 has been around for many years, now brand new in its fourth generation. Typically, we get a solid 8-inch HD display, a reasonably usable processor and pure Android. That always resulted in a good entry-level tablet. However, my review of the Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 shows that it disappoints with one important feature this year.

Design & Build Quality

But let’s start with the design first. The Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 looks like a typical Lenovo tablet, but they have adjusted the design slightly this year. They abandoned the metal casing and instead the latest version is completely made of a gray plastic. It doesn’t feel too cheap, though, as the back is engraved with a pattern of triangles with a light texture.

It’s not particularly thin at 8.9 mm, but only weighs 320 grams.

It’s charged using a USB C 2.0 port, has a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and you can expand the storage thanks to a MicroSD card slot. If you hold the tablet in landscape orientation, there are two speakers on the right and left side. Obviously, the bass could be better, but it’s sufficiently loud for this price range and the sound quality is okay.

Read: The Best 8-Inch Tablets On The Market Today

Only acceptable are the cameras. Both the 2-megapixel front camera and the 5-megapixel main camera lack details. That’s normal for a cheap tablet, of course. Even very cheap smartphones usually take much better photos and videos.

Display: 8 Inches Without Netflix?

The Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 has an 8-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. So, the pixel density has not changed since the first generation. And competitors like the realme Pad mini and Nokia T10 do not have a sharper display either. HD on 8 inches is usable and we have to live with that anyway.

I like the fact that it’s a fully laminated display, unlike the Amazon Fire HD 8.

However, I think it’s a pity that it’s relatively dark. According to the Lenovo online store’s spec sheet, it’s 350 nits bright and I compared it with the 400 nits Lenovo Tab M9. The latter is noticeably brighter and especially more pleasant to use outdoors. However, the M8 is bright enough for indoors.

All other properties of the screen are okay – except for another weak point that I noticed. Since the tablet has a widevine level of L3 only, you cannot watch Netflix with HD resolution. Movies and TV shows can be watched in SD quality only. However, you can select HD on YouTube.

Hardware & Performance

The Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 is equipped with a MediaTek Helio A22 quad-core processor. In addition, there is 2GB, 3GB or 4GB RAM and 32GB or 64GB internal storage. In Germany where I’m based, just the version with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage is available for 179 Euros so far. That is the version I have.

What’s very interesting is that the Helio A22 quad-core processor is weaker than the Helio P22T octa-core chip that sits in the third generation. Despite the weaker processor, however, we get a higher RAM option with 4GB.

In the Geekbench 5 benchmark comparison, you can see that the performance is significantly weaker than other 8-inch tablets like the Nokia T10, realme Pad mini, and Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus. The Lenovo Tab M9 is also a lot more powerful, which is even a bit cheaper, but only has 3GB of RAM.

The 4GB RAM is great and I think that is one reason why the Geekbench 5 Compute Test runs but spits out a very weak result. The compute test does not work on other competitors like the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite.

The 3D Mark Wild Life Test, which I usually run, does not work on the M8. The chipset is too weak for that. However, you can see in the 3D Mark Sling Shot Test that the graphics performance is significantly weaker than the Amazon Fire 7 and even a bit weaker than the Lenovo Tab M7 Gen 3. Both cost less than 100 Dollars.

So, based on the benchmarks, the Tab M8 Gen 4 is no gaming tablet. And indeed, Apex Legend, for example, cannot even be installed. However, PUBG Mobile runs and is playable when you set the graphics to “balanced”. HD graphics cannot be selected.

Read: Our Big Lenovo Tablet Comparison

Simple games like Grimvalor run great, really well. And the performance for Chrome, YouTube and Feedly is not bad at all. I think this is also due to the 4GB RAM. If you are looking for a tablet mainly for reading and watching a bit of YouTube, the performance is okay. Not more than okay, though, because you may experience some lags.

The performance of the Lenovo Tab M9 is much better in a direct comparison. Especially for games, but also for other applications. It is a real pity and also a bit strange that Lenovo uses such a weak chipset for the M8 but gives the tablet 4 GB of RAM.

Software: Android 12

The operating system is Android 12, although some variants are also supposed to come with Android 12 Go. I guess this applies to the version with 2GB RAM. The Go edition is a slimmed-down version of Android for devices with weaker hardware. But as I said, my model with 4GB RAM runs normal Android 12.

As typical for the manufacturer, the interface is almost not customized, it’s pure Android. All of Google’s apps are preinstalled and, as always, this includes Kids Space and Google Entertainment Space. I never use it and you can turn it off in the settings.

Lenovo’s website says that the M8 Gen 4 is “Upgradeable to Android 13”. I hope that means it will get an update to Android 13. After that, however, I don’t expect major updates.

Read: The Best Android-Tablets You Can Buy

Battery Life

The battery life is surprisingly good, which is certainly also due to the weaker processor and especially the darker display. In my test, it reached a runtime of 11 hours. For that, an HD YouTube video always runs in a loop at maximum brightness.

Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 Review: Final Verdict

Let’s end this Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 review. Can I recommend it? Well, not really. The display is a bit dark, but bright enough for home use and otherwise good. The build quality is solid, the speakers are okay, we get reasonably up-to-date Android and a long battery life. With 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, we also get quite high storage options.

However, it is quite a shame that the processor inside is so weak. And weaker than the predecessor, that’s the bitter disappointment. I’m guessing that’s also due to rising prices and inflation. However, they are simultaneously launching the Lenovo Tab M9 with a much stronger chipset and a brighter display. At 9 inches, it’s only a bit larger. I reviewed the M9 as well.

Even crazier, by the way, is that currently the Lenovo Tab M9 with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage is 20 Euros cheaper than the Lenovo Tab M8 Gen 4 with 4GB and 64GB. Sure, more memory is cool, but in this case, I think the processor is much more important. Obviously, prices might change in the future and vary by region.