Lenovo Yoga Tab Review: Best Galaxy Tab S11 Alternative?

For $550, the Lenovo Yoga Tab promises that it can do everything that the $800 Samsung Galaxy S11 can do. It even comes with a stylus out of the box. So, is it a much better value than the S11? To find out, we played tons of games, ran benchmarks, drew and took notes and tested its desktop mode.

Spoiler: the Yoga Tab is great at almost everything, but it has one critical flaw. Let’s talk about that.

Design & Build

The Yoga Tab’s build is all metal, the edges are nicely rounded and the display bezels are thin. And with a 16:10 aspect ratio and an 11.1’’ display, it’s hard to tell it apart from the Galaxy Tab S11, which costs nearly double as much. It’s just a bit thicker at 6.2mm, and about the same weight at 458g. 

You can get it in a silvery grey colour, or “Seashell” white. On the back, there’s a Lenovo logo and a nearly flat camera bump. The tablet doesn’t wobble at all when writing.

On the right side, you find the power button next to 2 volume control knobs. There is no fingerprint reader, so you’ll be stuck with using a pin or the less secure face unlock. 

On the left side sits the USB 3.1 port that allows you to output display to an external monitor. Practical! 

There is no 5g model, so there’s no SIM slot or Micro-SD expansion slot. That’s something you still get on the Galaxy Tab S11.

Display & Speakers 

For $550, the Yoga Tab’s display is exactly what you’d want. It’s an 11.1’’ LCD panel with a good 800 nits of peak brightness and fast 144Hz refresh rate.

Of course, you’re not going to have as insane contrast ratios as the Galaxy Tab 11 with its OLED display, but everything still looks vibrant and sharp thanks to the 3200 x 2000 pixel resolution.

The 16:10 aspect ratio is perfect for watching movies and YouTube videos, which are usually made in that format for desktop view.

The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, so light scratching and small drops shouldn’t be an issue.

Lenovo’s tablet speakers are excellent as usual. This Yoga packs 4 speakers in a stereo configuration with 2 woofers and 2 tweeters. Dolby Atmos is also supported. We find the sound excellent, with clean vocals and audible bass. Tablet speakers don’t get much better than this, and even the OnePlus Pad 3 with 8 speakers doesn’t sound as clear. 

Hardware & Performance

Any modern midrange tablet is going to feel fast when scrolling through apps or navigating the UI, and performance differences are only really apparent when gaming or doing heavy tasks like video editing. 

The Yoga Tab uses the 2 years old, but still excellent Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, combined with a base 8GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There’s also a configuration with 12GB RAM and 256GB of faster UFS 4.0 storage.

At this price, there are more powerful tablets like the OnePlus Pad 3 which feature the much faster Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. It has a much bigger screen, though, and there’s no 11-inch tablet with a Snapdragon 8 Elite at the moment.

In the Geekbench CPU speed test, the Yoga Tab is 30% slower than the OnePlus Pad 3 in single-core, and 22% slower than the Galaxy Tab S11.

3D Mark’s suite of graphics tests give us an idea of how the Yoga Tab will perform in games. In 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme, the performance is 25% worse than the Galaxy Tab S11. Stability is also great, with the Yoga Tab getting an 81% stability score in the Wildlife Extreme stability test, meaning that it only loses 19% of its peak performance in the worst case scenarios.

Overall, while the iPad Pro and Air remain much faster, the Yoga tab is just a bit behind the fastest Android tablets.  

Gaming Test

Heavy mobile games are not a concern for the Yoga Tab. Fortnite at epic settings and 100% 3D resolution can be played at a near constant 120FPS. That’s as high as you can go on any Android device, and the experience feels great.

Once Human, another demanding Android title, runs super smooth even on the highest possible settings. That’s really impressive. Less intensive games like Vampire Survivors don’t even make the tablet warm. 

So, the Yoga Tab is as good for gaming as the S11, if you don’t need an OLED. But there are faster options like the OnePlus Pad 3, if you would go for a bigger tablet as well.

Battery Life

In our standardised YouTube HD video streaming test, the Yoga only lasts 5 hours when streaming at max brightness. That’s not a great result, and means you might have to recharge your tablet during a long workday. The iPad 11 gets the same result in this test, but the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro lasts 50% longer. The OnePlus Pad 3 also gets nearly double the runtime. 

Stylus & Keyboard Cover

Lenovo’s Tab Pen Pro is a surprisingly good stylus that actually comes as a package deal with the tablet. That’s a huge plus for people looking to take notes or draw accurately. We’re also happy that the stylus feels comfortable to hold, has zero lag and charges magnetically on the side of the Yoga Tab. 

With 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, tilt detection and a replaceable soft tip, you can reliably draw with it. Input and pressure are registered accurately, and the battery life is solid too. In supported apps, the pen even uses haptic feedback to mimic the feeling of writing on paper. 

We tested the pen in Notewise, Nebo and Infinite Painter. Overall, we like using the Yoga Tab as a writing tablet a lot.

The Keyboard cover for the Yoga Tab is excellent, and it comes as a package deal with the tablet in the US. We were able to get some hands-on time with it during the IFA Berlin last month. The keyboard feels great to type on, and there’s even a trackpad. 

The keyboard attaches securely via 3 pogo-pins at the bottom of the tablet. It’s also only 375g. If you’re looking for a light tablet that you can use as a secondary work device when travelling or during commute, this is a solid choice. 

Alternatively you can use any other bluetooth keyboard like the Logitech Keys 2 Go with the Yoga Tab. We’ve linked the accessories we can recommend in the description below.

Software

As usual, software is where Lenovo fumbles. The Yoga Tab comes with Android 15 preinstalled instead of the new Android 16, and Lenovo only promises 3 years of Android version upgrades and 4 years of security patches. That’s a lot less than Samsung, OnePlus or Apple are promising. 

Lenovo’s ZUI 17 is a lightly modified, nearly stock Android 15 experience. And the only things Lenovo really adds are preinstalled apps that waste your storage space. Temu, “Find Apps” and Solitaire immediately appear once you set up your device. Of course, you can just uninstall them.

The one redeeming factor about the software is the inclusion of a Samsung-DeX like desktop mode. Thanks to the USB 3.1 port, you can use an external monitor and use the tablet as a portable workstation with solid multitasking features.

The “Smart Connect” app also lets you connect your tablet to a windows computer. You can move files between the devices or use your tablet as an extended display for your PC. 

Camera

You’ll be surprised by the camera quality. There’s a 13MP wide angle front camera that’s good for selfies and a great 13MP main rear camera. Both can take video with 4K resolution. There’s an additional macro camera on the back that we find pretty useless on a tablet.

Lenovo Yoga Tab Review: Final Verdict

For us, the Lenovo Yoga Tab is a solid tablet that does a lot right. The display and speakers are good and gaming performance is great. But the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 does a lot of things better. It has an OLED display, the better S-Pen, and much longer software support.

So, if you want the best 11-inch Android tablet, there’s no way around the S11. But if you want to save a bit of money, the Yoga Tab is a great alternative. Make sure to compare prices, we think the Yoga Tab should be at least $200 cheaper.