Lenovo is hitting it off again with another tablet for their Tab series with the Lenovo Tab 4 tablet, available in both 8-inch and 10-inch versions. The Tab 4 is the budget friendly tablet of choice offering a 1.0GHz Snapdragon 425 SoC with 2GB RAM, a long lasting battery, and the option for multiple profiles so the entire family can have their own settings the way they like. Our Lenovo Tab 4 10″ review takes a look at the larger of the two available tablets to see how it performs with the updated specs over previous versions.
Specifications:
- OS: Android 7.1
- Display: 10″ HD (1280 x 800) IPS (8″ also available)
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 @ 1.0GHz
- Storage: 16GB (expandable 128GB)
- Memory: 2GB
- Camera: 5MP rear; 2MP front
- Battery: 4,850mAh / 7,000mAh
- Weight: 0.7lbs (8″) / 1.1lbs (10″)
What’s in the box:
- Tab 4 10″
- MicroUSB cable/power block
- Cleaning cloth
- Manual
Design
Every tablet itself is pretty much the same when it comes to design, a rectangular body with rounded or square edges. So when I say the Lenovo Tab 4 is like all other tablets out there as far as rectangular design goes, I mean it. Don’t take it as a bad thing because tablets have gotten this far by keeping it simple for consumers. The Tab 4 has a nice design to it all round, but starting out with the front of the device, it has either an 8 or 10-inch display depending on what you purchase with some pretty big bezels and a front facing camera.
When you flip the Lenovo Tab 4 over and you’ll get a plain back with the just the camera in the top right. The material used for the back reminds me of the sandpaper back on the OnePlus One from back in the day, but it’s not as rough. Personally, I wouldn’t mind another phone or tablet with that type of back. The top portion of the tablet has two speaker grills with the bottom offering no buttons. Moving to the left side of the unit, you’ll find the power/standby button and the volume rocker, which are both really responsive. You can’t miss the power button because it has a textured feel to it like Google’s Pixel or the notification slider on the OP5. Over on the right side are the 3.5mm headphone jack (that some of us love and want to keep around forever), a microSD card slot, and a Micro-USB port. Not sure why Lenovo went this route with USB Type-C being a norm these days, but when you go for a budget friendly tablet, it’s understanding.
Display
Tablets are meant to be bigger versions of smartphones, we all know this, but the one drawback that tablets generally have are less resolution for pixels because of the larger screens. The Lenovo Tab 4 can be bought in either 8 or 10-inches and both have the same resolution 1280 x 800, so no matter which screen size option you choose, the display will be the same. Speaking of the display, it’s not bad at all… for a tablet I mean. Viewing angles for text and pictures were good up until the glare started which wasn’t too hard to reach. Colors, on the other hand, were as close to accurate as you can get with a decent IPS display. Blacks, blues, reds, and whites were nice with the brightness turned all the way to max. Other than that, the display was sub par.
Software
Lenovo has installed Android 7.1 Nougat on their budget Tab 4 while keeping it as close to stock Android as you’ll get. There isn’t any layover of Lenovo using their own software for Android, which is awesome because I prefer stock Android and would make other happy knowing there won’t be any kind of lag. Like any other tablet from manufacturers, there will be some bloatware, but Lenovo has only put three of their application on the Tab 4: SYNCit HD, SHAREit, and Lenovo TAB4 10. Both SYNCit and SHAREit can be uninstalled giving you a little bit more space to work with, but the Lenovo TAB4 application can only be disabled. I understand why it can only be disabled, due to it being a tour to what the tablet can do for you and showing off its specs.
For those of you with children and are going to use the tablet and share with them (good luck getting it back), Lenovo has added in a kids mode letting your youngsters play already installed apps such as a web browser, an app store, the camera, a games app, and more. There are parental controls for those parents who would prefer to keep their kids off of certain websites and of the likes.
Performance
While Lenovo is making sure people can purchase this tablet with its affordable price, they’ve chosen a pretty decent processor to allow users to have more than enough multitasking power and processing power to zero out any form of lag. Lenovo went with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 64-bit SoC @ 1.0GHZ and added 2GB RAM to keep performance high. Sure enough, I didn’t notice any sort of hiccups with the time I’ve had the unit. I know what you’re thinking, the processing power and memory can’t be enough for what I could possibly be using this for. Surprisingly enough, it did pretty well with what I put it through. Basic web browsing and streaming were the easier parts, but when I started making it work, it was able to keep up. I kept 5 tabs open at once consistently doing something different in each tab with little slowdown, but that was due to some web pages needing to fully load. Games, on the other hand, performed pretty well. Clash Royal isn’t a heavy frame rate game to play, but it was able to keep me playing without any frames dropping.
Sound
Sound means a lot to people when they purchase electronics like laptops, smartphones, and tablets. One fad that ended after a short time was dual front facing speakers, but luckily you’ll get some with the Tab 4 and if that wasn’t enough to make you happy, Dolby Atmos is Lenovo’s choice of sound enhancements.
Playing any type of music genre or video, the sound quality was actually pretty good when the volume was above 50%. Though there are front facing speakers, it doesn’t get as loud as you would think when something is playing and can be a bit of a drawback to some. However, thanks to the Dolby application, you can change the EQ to movie, music, game, voice, and a custom option to the settings you prefer making your experience much better.
Camera
Tablets still have cameras, but the reason why is for those who actually take pictures of their kids, or grandkids, or of themselves for backgrounds or upload them to social networking, but they aren’t really the best cameras out there. The Tab 4’s rear facing camera has a 5MP resolution giving some decent photos in the right lighting indoors and great photos outdoors. As for the front facing camera, you’re looking a 2MP shooter that isn’t any better than the rear camera.
The camera application is simple and I would prefer most OEMs to follow suit as many camera apps can be more than what they really need. You’ll get the shutter button like all other camera apps, a video button, an HDR option, a button to switch between the rear and front camera, and a settings option.
Battery
Battery life is something we all look for when it comes to electronics. How long will the unit last with little to heavy use? Well, the 8-inch comes with a 4,850mAh battery size may have plenty of juice for some average to heavy users. The 10-inch model, on the other hand, comes with a 7,000mAh battery capacity that’ll definitely get you through your days. For the time I’ve been using the 10-inch model, the battery life has been plenty for what my child and I used it for. I let her play on the kid’s mode during her play time, while I watched Netflix for entertainment and browsed the web every so often when using the tablet.
A few hours a day I would use the Lenovo Tab 4 for a bit of web browsing and watch two 30 minute episodes of a show and the battery was still going strong without powering off the unit. By day two I had just shy of half battery left which gave me plenty of time for my daughter to play some games for an hour. By the end of the night on day three, I did have to charge the battery. I figured there would have been another day or at least half of a day of usage left, but getting three days out of a tablet that was used only for a few hours at a time is great. Battery life is really dependent on how you’ll use the Lenovo Tab 4, your mileage may vary from my experience.
Price
If you didn’t already know, Lenovo has made two different versions of the Tab 4, either an 8 or 10-inch display offering the same specs other than the battery size with an affordable price tag that you really can’t beat from a well know manufacturer. The 8-inch display is priced at $129USD while the 10-inch counterpart is priced at $199USD. Neither price point is going to cost an arm or leg to get, but those who may be looking at the 10-inch display may not want to fish out $200USD for a tablet that is the same as its younger sibling.
Wrap Up
Hands down, this is a great option for those who are looking for an Android tablet and wanting an affordable price. The screen sizes are perfect for what you’re looking for, performance is decent enough to those who might only be using it for work and not really play, the battery is exceptional too.
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