#An Affordable Android Tablet with a Cool Feature – Review

Tablets are wonderful gadgets, sized comfortably somewhere between a smartphone and a laptop and offering enough power to handle everyday tasks. The Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 is no exception, offering up a stylish design with a kickstand, upgradeable storage, loud speakers, great battery life, and so much more.

The tablet is a great choice for casual everyday use, be it for work, school, or relaxing at home. It comes with a slew of (mostly) useful apps and even has Google Kids Space—a dedicated area designed to inspire and nurture your kids’ creativity and curiosity. And though it lacks a few premium features, the Yoga Tab 11 is an all-around solid (if not slightly underwhelming) Android tablet with decent specs that costs far less than an iPad.

Specs as Reviewed

• Processor: MediaTek Helio G90T (Octa-core, 2x A76 @2.05GHz + 6x A55 @2.0GHz)
• Memory: 4GB LPDDR4x
• Graphics: ARM Mali-G76 MC4 (Shared)
• Storage: 128GB UFS 2.1
• Display: 11-inch 2K (2000 x 1200) IPS, touchscreen, 400 nits
• Camera: 8MP auto-focus (rear), 8MP fixed-focus (front)
• Audio: 4x JBL Dolby Atmos speakers
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 5 802.11AC (2×2), Bluetooth 5.0

Design: Durable and Gorgeous

When it comes to smart and durable design, Lenovo knows what it’s doing. The company has a knack for packing lots of great features and hardware into devices and maintaining its minimalist understated aesthetic, which is precisely the case with the Yoga Tab 11. Not terribly shocking, this tablet is also one of Lenovo’s more stylish designs.

It features a lovely built-in kickstand that can be folded up against the back of the tablet, popped out to support the tablet at a large range of angles, or flipped out 180 degrees which potentially allows you to hang it up. I loved the stand-to-mount flexibility that the handle offered, thanks to its stiff movement; it even made for a comfortable grip while holding it sideways. The kickstand is a really neat feature that makes the tablet much more versatile than your average tablet, and you won’t have to pay more for a case that’ll prop it up.

However, the kickstand does contribute to the tablet’s somewhat bulky design. Don’t get me wrong—it’s definitely still slim enough to fit in your backpack or messenger bag but, thanks to its sizable base/bump/hinge area, it’s no iPad.The tablet is quite pretty, though, and until you’re trying to jam it into your bag, you probably won’t find a reason to care about the bump. The kickstand has a removable rubberized partial cover that ensures it won’t scratch or slip on your table while it’s propped up.

At the rear of the tablet is an appealing design. The lower two-fifths of it has a rubberized feel (if a bit more metallic than the kickstand’s cover), while the top three-fifths sports a muted grey fabric design, a circular camera cutout, and a shiny silver “Yoga” logo. Overall, the tablet has a premium and inviting design that feels good in the hand and is easy to maneuver. It also feels quite durable and capable of easily standing up to daily wear and tear (but that fabric might be a real pain to clean should you stain it, so be careful).

The only port the Tab 11 has, however, is a single USB-C 2.0 port that it uses for data transfers and Power Deliver 2.0. It lacks an HDMI port, a headphone jack, or anything else you might find convenient, though (so don’t rule out lugging around a USB hub or another solution). However, because it isn’t designed to be a workhorse, its limited selection is understandable.

Performance: Good … for Everyday Tasks

This delightful little tablet is powered by the eight-core Mediatek Helio G90T processor, which is underwhelming considering that similar tablets from Lenovo have significantly more powerful Snapdragon processors. Although Lenovo says the tablet has “high-performance specs” that make it “a great tablet for gaming or streaming at full power,” it’s best used for casual mobile gaming at best; serious gamers will, instead, likely opt for a dedicated gaming machine and a monitor with a much higher refresh rate.

As I put the Yoga Tab 11 through a series of stress tests, I got a good feel for its limitations. It’s definitely a better fit for casual use. If you’re looking to use it to stream videos and music, make video calls, browse websites, or play the heck out of some mobile games, this is your tablet.

If you’re looking to do more than that, though, you might want to consider a more powerful option. At one point, I had seven other apps open and a YouTube video streaming picture-in-picture with four tabs open in Chrome. As I opened up a fifth to scroll through Amazon, it crashed. The Tab 11’s limited 4GB of RAM prevents it from doing anything that’s genuinely substantial, so just keep that in mind.

Battery-wise, this tablet keeps on giving. It’s rocking a 7,500mAh battery and Lenovo cites it as being able to last up to 15 hours while watching videos. I got almost that much out of it over the course of two days, while doing a combination of watching videos on Netflix and YouTube and listening to Spotify while scrolling social media or playing some lightweight games. Keeping the brightness in between 50-80% and the volume anywhere from 25-65% (and a handful of apps open in the background), I got a little over 12.5 hours of battery from it.

Display & Camera: Decent Enough

The tablet has a spacious 11-inch 2K (2000×1200) IPS display with Dolby Vision that keeps its bezels to a comfortable minimum. It gets decently bright, up to 400 nits, has a 1500:1 contrast ratio, and has a welcome anti-fingerprint design that’s perfect for family use. The display’s 15:9 aspect ratio gives you plenty of space to scroll social media, type up a document, or binge-watch the latest Netflix series.

With TÜV eye care certification, you can rest assured that your eyes won’t feel the strain even after staring at the tablet for a few hours. It also has a 99-degree wide viewing angle, which is enough to ensure that everyone sitting next to you on a video call, for example, can comfortably view things. The only real complaint I have about the display is its underwhelming 60Hz refresh rate, so don’t plan on using it for online gaming sessions.

You can set up face recognition biometric authentication, which should be more convenient to unlock the device; beware, though that because the tablet doesn’t have IR cameras or additional sensors, it’s still not super secure. It only takes a matter of seconds to set up and you can create a secure PIN as a backup option. As I tested it, however, I was thankful to have the PIN backup as the 2D face recognition struggled to work. If I held the tablet at the exact same angle (and lighting scenario) it was in when I set it up, it worked without fail.

When I moved it to a higher or lower angle, or attempted to use it in even moderately different lighting, it struggled; after three attempts, it forced me to log in with the PIN. Lenovo’s tech definitely leaves a lot to be desired here; I need this to work way more consistently than it did, especially if I’m lugging it around the city with me all day long.

Part of that problem here, though, was the lackluster camera. There’s an 8MP camera on both the front and rear of the device, though the rear’s is fixed-focus while the front’s automatically adjusts the focus as needed. They were … okay overall, but pictures looked noticeably grainy in low-to-moderate lighting. Honestly, given that this is the exact type of device you’d use for video calls, that should be better. Again, though, given the Yoga Tab 11’s low price point and intended use, it’s decent enough.

Speakers: Loud but Not Outstanding

I was truly impressed by how loud the speakers got. The quad JBL speakers (that’s two on each side and two in the bottom hinge bar) reached volumes louder than what I expected and what I’d ever need in most situations. However, despite being optimized with Dolby Atmos, the audio quality left a lot to be desired. It’s akin to what you’d get with other small speakers.

Percussion and bass both pushed the speakers to their limit pretty quickly, especially when you set the volume above about 50-60%. With the volume turned up beyond that point, you can’t “hear the whole orchestra,” so to speak; rather, just a few instruments, which is less than ideal. The bass is far from robust and when it comes to music, the speakers seemed tuned for pop or electronica over any other genre.

So, yes, the speakers get plenty loud, but they’re at their best when used for watching YouTube videos or for having music on in the background. If you’re hoping for a better audio experience, I’d recommend connecting the tablet to a Bluetooth speaker or pair of true wireless earbuds.

As for the Tab 11’s microphone, you’ve got a dual-array microphone sporting a low-power DSP for far-field voice recognition. They did a solid job picking up audio in recordings and on video calls; Lenovo also uses noise-canceling tech to eliminate hideous background noise. I’d recommend using a separate USB microphone if you want better-sounding audio but due to the tablet’s singular port, that might not always be a smart option.

Software, Apps, & Extras: Quite Thoughtful

The tablet currently runs Android 11 and is likely to get Android 12 later down the line. You can also pair it with Lenovo’s pressure-sensitive Precision Pen 2 and take notes, sketch, or draw whenever you want. It also features a microSD slot. Although the included 128GB of internal storage should be sufficient for anything you’re doing on this tablet, it’s still nice to know that you can add more in the event that you need it.

It’s also loaded with Google Kids Space, which is an easy way to keep your kids entertained (and possibly even educate them while engaging their curiosity and creativity) while keeping them away from content and apps you don’t want them to bother with. Kids Space is part of Google Families, a tool that’s designed to help parents responsibly raise kids alongside technology. It’s filled with books, videos, and apps that are designed for kids (and yes, you can set boundaries for the area with parental controls).

Bored? Find something to do in the Entertainment Space. Here you can discover TV shows, movies, games, books, music, and other entertainment-centric apps all in one place. When I logged in, I saw options for services I use on the regular like Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix; it also made it easy for me to add (read: download and log in to) other apps I might have an account with, like Prime Video, Disney+, Starz, HBO Max, and Hulu.

Otherwise, it proffered recommendations for TV shows, movie rentals, YouTube videos, mobile games (from new titles, charts, and ones I’d already started playing), and books spanning pretty much every price point, genre, and interest. The Entertainment Space feature is certainly nice to have and absolutely the perfect use for this tablet.

The tablet also comes with over 25 pre-installed apps. They’re mostly Google and Microsoft apps, but there are a few entertainment options there as well, like Netflix and Amazon Music. Of course, you can download other apps from the Google Play Store, but it’s nice to have a bunch of apps I already use, and was absolutely going to download anyway, there and ready to go (and yes, you can delete any you don’t want).

Final Thoughts

The Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 is a solid option for an affordable Android tablet. It’s definitely aimed at families and everyday use, but it handles lightweight tasks with ease—just don’t plan on doing anything too intensive with it. I loved the tablet’s clever design, from its robust kickstand to its attractive finish, and the battery life was decent as well. While it isn’t the slimmest or most powerful tablet out there, it’s a nice budget-friendly pick for anyone wanting a tablet running Android.