Reviews
Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus Review: Is it a good value for your money?
The Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus is a new Android tablet that offers nice hardware at an affordable price. Its highlights are a 10.1-inch full HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 and Android 7.1.1 Nougat. How good is it and how does it compare to the competition? That‘s what you‘ll find out in this Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus review.
Update: By now you can get the successor which is called Lenovo Tab P10.
Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus Design
The design of the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus looks quite nice. It has a glass back similar to the one of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. That does look nice but if you‘re getting a darker version you‘ll see fingerprints easily. That‘s not so much the case with the white one though.
Around the glass front and back is a silver bezel. At first, I thought that‘s aluminum but in fact, it is just plastic that looks like metal. The build quality is better than the Tab3 series from last year but certainly not as good as the ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 which costs only a bit more.
It is not the thinnest tablet with 7 millimeters but that‘s still alright. The same goes for the weight at 476 grams. It‘s not the lightest but not heavy either.
Cameras, Fingerprint Reader, MicroSD
Above the 10-inch display sits a 5-megapixel front camera. Underneath the display is a fingerprint reader which lets you unlock the Tab4 10 Plus fast and securely. The fingerprint reader does not double as a home button though, which is a bit confusing.
On the right side, Lenovo is giving us a microSD card slot. If you‘ve got the LTE version then the SIM card will go here as well. Above is a USB Typ C port with OTG support. I could connect hard drives and SD card readers without any problems. We‘re getting a 3.5-millimeter audio jack as well.
There‘s a power button on the left side and the volume controls are placed there as well. Above the display are two speakers which are angled to the front a bit. The speakers are actually quite good for a tablet but not the best either.
On the back is an 8-megapixel camera with an LED flash. The quality of both cameras is certainly alright for snapshots or if you want to scan documents. You can also record decent full HD video. The front camera is pretty good for video calls too. It’s not as good as the cameras of most recent smartphones though.
Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus Display
As you might have guessed from its name the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus has a 10.1-inch display with an aspect ratio of 16:10. It‘s an IPS panel with a full HD resolution at 1920 x 1200. That‘s a major difference to the Lenovo Tab4 10 which only has an HD display.
In my opinion, a full HD resolution is high enough for a 10.1-inch tablet. You still might notice a difference compared to your smartphone though. A lot of phones have higher pixel densities and if you compare them directly you‘ll see a difference.
Besides that, the display is pretty good. Colors look nice, the viewing angles are good and it is bright enough. I worked with the tablet for a couple of hours outside and didn‘t have any problems at maximum brightness.
If you want a tablet with a higher resolution you could check out the Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Plus. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow but has a nicer display and costs almost the same now.
Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus Performance
Inside the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor. All eight cores are clocked at 2GHz. We already know this chipset from phones like the Huawei Nova and BlackBerry KeyOne.
The Snapdragon 625 is not as fast as the Snapdragon 820 from the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. But still, the performance is actually quite nice and good enough for almost everything. It‘s not too energy hungry either.
I have the Tab4 10 Plus with 3GB of RAM and a 16GB internal storage. I had no problems playing games like Dead Trigger 2, Asphalt Xtreme or Modern Combat 5. You might notice some very minor lags now and then but it runs very smooth most of the time.
You have 8GB to use for yourself if you‘re getting the 16GB version. That‘s a bit small when you‘re planning to install a lot of games. Lenovo is offering the Tab4 10 with 4GB of RAM and a 64GB internal storage as well though.
Benchmarks and Comparisons
In my benchmark tests the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus performs as we expect of the Snapdragon 625. In Geekbench 4 it gets 870 points in the single core test and 4350 points in the multi core test. On AnTuTu the benchmark result is 62400.
So the performance is quite good for the price but not the best either. The similar priced Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Plus gets better results in the Geekbench single core test and in AnTuTu. The same goes for the ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 – it is better in Geekbench and AnTuTu as well. Depending on where you live those three tablets are priced very similarly.
Android 7 Nougat and Software
On the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat which is a pretty recent version of Android. I hope Lenovo will keep it up to date because the Tab3 series is still running Marshmallow. They still didn‘t announce any updates yet.
Lenovo didn‘t customize the UI of Android Nougat too much which is very nice. There are a couple of Apps installed like Netflix, Microsofts Apps and the ones from Google as well. You can deinstall them if you like.
The software did run very smoothly during my review. I used the split screen view quite often and had no problems at all. Most of the time I‘ve had Skype or the Chrome browser running on one side and Microsoft Word on the other. I didn‘t encounter any lags at all. The same goes for watching YouTube and Netflix: Everything runs as expected.
As I said, the interface is not customized a lot but Lenovo is giving us a couple of interesting features. One of them is the kid’s mode in case you want to give your tablet to your children. Another one is the productivity interface which you can activate manually. Lenovo also asks you to activate it once you connect the tablet to a keyboard.
In productivity mode, the interface looks a bit similar to a desktop operating system. There‘s a task bar at the bottom with your opened apps. It‘s easier to use the Tab4 10 Plus with a mouse this way. I actually did get a good amount of work done when using this tablet. Lenovo will be offering a keyboard in the future but for this review, I used the Microsoft Universal Mobile Keyboard. It worked very nicely but due to the angled bezel I had to use a different stand.
Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus Battery Life
Inside the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus sits a battery with a capacity of 7000mAh. That is quite big and I got a runtime of 12 hours which is very decent. To get comparable results I always do the same battery test for all of my reviews. I‘m running an HD video at 50 percent brightness and activated WiFi until the tablet shuts itself off.
As you can see in my comparison chart 12 hours is a very good battery life. It is not the best though. I mentioned the Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 10 Plus before which has a much longer runtime at 16 hours.
How good is the battery life in real life use? Well, it obviously depends on what you’re doing. In my real life test I got 47.6 hours of standby and 8.6 hours of active use.
I did some video chats with Skype, typed articles in Microsoft Word, watched YouTube and played some games. WiFi and Bluetooth were always activated and the display brightness was set to 100 percent about half the time. It performed much better than the Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 which I’ve been reviewing at the same time.
Final thoughts
Overall the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus is a very nice tablet. The build quality is good, performance is decent and it offers a good set of features like a microSD card slot and a fingerprint reader. It‘s also running recent Android 7.1.1 Nougat software and has a good battery life. I don‘t think you‘ll be disappointed if you get this tablet.
So can I recommend it? Yes, I can, it is a good tablet for its price. But at the same time it is not very exciting either. There are a couple of competitors you could look at too. Two of them are the Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Plus and ASUS ZenPad 3S 10. Both offer a bit better build quality, much higher resolution displays and a bit better performance. They are about a year old though.
- A pretty design with a glass back
- Good performance for its price
- Android 7.1 Nougat and useful software features
- Excellent battery life during real life use
- Fingerprints are visible easily on dark versions
- Future updates are unclear
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Salil Chhabra
February 12, 2018 at 4:33 pm
Hi,
I would say that you have given a very detailed and informative review, thanks so much for that.
I will be buying this Tab in a couple of days for sure.
Apart from this, please could you let me know which keyboard are you using and where can i buy this ?
Thanks
Andrzej
February 13, 2018 at 7:51 am
Hi,
I’m using the Microsoft Universal Mobile Keyboard and you should be able to get it at most online shops almost worldwide. It works with Android, Windows 10 and iOS and it is my favourite Bluetooth keyboard for tablets. However, the build in stand does not work with the Lenovo Tab4 10 Plus because it has a kind of angled frame. So if you want to use that keyboard, you have to use a seperate stand with it.
Brennan
March 6, 2019 at 8:37 am
That silver edge you thought was metal is actually aluminum according to Lenovo.