Lenovo Idea Tab Plus review: A cheap and cheerful tablet for students

In September, Lenovo came to IFA with two new tablets: the Yoga Tab Pro and, what we have for review here, the Idea Pad Plus. The latter is slightly larger (12.1in) and £200 cheaper than the Yoga model.

That's because it's mainly aimed at students and people with tight budgets. Annoyingly, we did receive a keyboard with our review unit, so we couldn't really assess its quality for all office workloads. But it went through all our usual benchmarks and did well for a low spec tablet...

Image 1 of 10

Lenovo Idea Tab Plus: Design

For design, the Idea Tab Plus is not too dissimilar from the Yoga Tab we recently reviewed. All that's different is the lack of a 'Yoga' logo on the back cover, and it has one less camera lens. Otherwise, it's identical... same shiny 'Lenovo' logo, same dark grey bar across the back cover. It's pretty, but maybe not as striking as an iPad or Galaxy Tab.

It's all glass at the front and encased in an aluminum frame, with an aluminum back cover. At 6.3mm it is ever so slightly thicker than the Yoga Tab. It is also much chinkier than the S11 Ultra, but the 12.1in display makes it easier to handle.

Power button and volume rockers sit in the top corner, and the bottom edge is magnetic. Which is strange, as that's where you connect the stylus. This, we found, was far weaker than on other tablets – the pen is not really secure, and it falls off quite often.

Lenovo Idea Tab Plus: Display

The Lenovo Idea Tab Plus has a 12.1in LCD panel, with a 2.5K resolution (2560 x 1600 pixels). You get a buttery smooth 90Hz refresh rate, but also some fairly thick bezels. However, we found it to be crisp and colour-accurate.

With our colormiter, the Idea Tab Plus showcased 96.6% for sRGB gamut color coverage, which is a fairly good score, but lower than what we expected. We felt from our experience of using the device that its colors were far more vivid than its benchmarks suggested. This is a bold and vibrant screen. And, its peak brightness was 598.22 cd/m2 – and it can go even higher with HDR content – which gives you a rich display from all angles and in any lighting conditions.

Lenovo Idea Tab Plus: Specs and performance

Inside the Lenovo Idea Tab Plus is a Mediatek Dimensity 6400 chip, which has been developed with a 6nm process. So again, it differs from the Yoga Tab in that it isn't as powerful, as our benchmarks will show. However, it does have one slightly better outcome.

In our looped video test, the Idea Tab Plus lasted 14hrs 15mins, which is far beyond the mere 9hrs of the Yoga Tab. For context, this is less than most of the other tablets we've tested recently. Nowhere near Apple's iPad Pro, or the Honor MagicPad. Also slightly less than the OnePlus Pad 3 and the Galaxy S11 Ultra. So it's an OK score, but superior to the Yoga model.

But then comes the Geekbench 6 score, and we fall hard. The Idea Tab Plus managed 757 for single core and 1983 for multi-core. Those are some weak numbers compared to the rest of the field. And an awful drop in multi-threaded performance compared to the Yoga Tab, which scored 5912.

In reality, this wasn't as obvious; the Idea Pad Plus is still snappy and can handle most tasks with ease. But it isn't a big performer, don't go expecting lots of TOPS... this is a sub-£300 tablet aimed at students, after all.

Lenovo Idea Tab Plus: Features

The Idea Pad Plus ships with Android 15 and hardly any bloatware. There aren't many useless apps taking up space, and the interface is clean and neat. However, this is largely because it's a budget tablet that has limited features. It says AI on the box, but please don't expect much of that in this review.

You do, however, get a split-screen mode enabled by default. So if you're in Gmail, for example, and you open up a drive folder, you will have a view of both, which is useful. Great for watching YouTube and doodling at the same time.

The pen, however, is unusual, to say the least. For starters, you can unscrew the back end and see that it has an AAA battery. This also makes it rattle when you use it. We found that it was comfortable in the hand and responsive on screen, but it's nowhere near as intuitive or capable as other brands.

Lenovo Idea Tab Plus: Is it worth it?

Sadly, this is no tablet for a business. Or anyone with a serious aspiration to illustrate and draw. Our view might have been different if we had the keyboard, but given the low spec processor, it's hard to see this as a professional device.

But then, it is aimed at students, and for that purpose, it does just fine. Split-screen views across a surprisingly bright and colorful display will help anyone study. And the battery life is commendable at this price range. But it is worth investing in a better stylus regardless of your use case.

Lenovo Idea Tab Plus specifications