Thursday, October 1, 2020

Lenovo Smart Tab M10 FHD Plus Review

Lenovo recently released a couple of new tablets in the country, and one of them is the Lenovo Smart Tab M10 FHD Plus. It features a 10.3-inch full HD display, a MediaTek Helio P22 chipset, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, an 8MP rear camera, 5MP front camera, and a 5,000mAh battery. It is also equipped with Dolby Atmos dual speakers as well as the Google Assistant. If you are wondering what else it offers, find it out in our review!

Design and Construction

This device has a premium metal design boasting its sleek body and matte-finish back surface that repels fingerprints and smudges well. The back shows off the rear camera and the branding.

It has a large footprint at 244.2 x 153.3 x 8.15 mm, and a bit hefty at 460g but still easy to carry around.

Located at the top side of the tablet are the 3.5mm audio port and the speaker grille.

The right side is where the lock/power button, volume rocker, and card tray are found. The card tray is designed for a single Nano-SIM card that supports LTE connectivity and a MicroSD card expandable up to 256GB.

The other side is designated for the docking pin for smart charging. This device supports smart charging through the cradle that goes along with the package.

At the bottom part, you will see the USB-Type C port to charge its 5,000mAh battery. Next to it is another speaker grille.

In terms of portability, it’s a considerably large device but would easily fit inside a bag. At 460g, it’s a bit hefty. You’ll be able to hold it with one hand, but you’ll definitely tire after a while. That’s where the dock comes in.

Display and Multimedia

Talking about the display, the Smart Tab M10 FHD Plus has a 10.3-inch Full-HD (1920×1200) IPS display with 330nits brightness that showcases vivid colors and decent sharpness. The screen has narrow bezels where the 5MP front camera rests at the top center in a portrait manner.

With a widescreen like this, the visuals from whatever you are viewing are good. The inclusion of the dock is convenient as we don’t need to purchase a separate tablet stand.

Since this tablet is powered with Dolby Atmos for its dual speakers, it is great for watching videos and listening to music. The audio quality is loud and clear, and you can choose between four sound profiles: Dynamic, Movie, Music, and Custom.

Camera

Unlike the camera of most smartphones nowadays, this tablet’s camera isn’t that great for photography but still shows good quality images, especially those taken from outdoors. It only has an 8MP rear camera, but it can still produce decent quality photos as long as there’s enough lighting. You may check out the sample images below for reference.

The front camera, on the other hand, has 5MP, which is just fine for video calls, but not advisable for selfies. Well yeah, tablets are also tricky to handle for taking selfies anyway, given its size. Check out these selfies I took under different lighting conditions.

OS, UI, and Apps

The Smart Tab M10 FHD Plus runs the Android 9 Pie and pre-installed with the usual Google apps. The home screen layout can be changed between the Drawer Mode and Tile Mode. As for productivity, the navigation bar options such as Classic Mode, Productivity Mode, and Gesture Mode are there.

Moreover, this also has a Screen Assistant packed with features like screen recorder, screenshot, do not disturb mode, eye-protection mode, and color mode. It also has a virtual pen features that let users put doodles and notes on the screen hassle-free. Sadly, it doesn’t come with a stylus.

This device is also ideal for kids as it comes with a special Kids Mode app that allows parents or guardians to manage the content the kids would see. Its parental controls can even set the devices to only allow safe, curated, preloaded content.

The tablet can also function like the Google Home Hub. Just dock it on the smart charging station, and you can activate Google Assistant using voice commands thanks to the far-field microphones, which can easily pick up the user’s voice.

Performance and Benchmarks

This device is powered with a MediaTek Helio P22 octa-core CPU and IMG GE8320 GPU. The performance is suitable for basic tasks such as social media browsing, eBook reading, note-taking, and video streaming. The 4G RAM is enough for light to mid multitasking. Run plenty of background apps, and you’ll experience some slowdowns. You can also game on it but don’t expect smooth performance in graphics-intensive titles. Check out the benchmark scores below:

• AnTuTu v8 – 105,093
• Geekbench 5 – 162 (Single-Core), 976 (Multi-core)
• 3DMark SSE – 759 (OpenGL ES 3.1)
• PCMark Work 2.0 – 5,547
• AndroBench – 277.91 MB/s (Seq. Read), 174.17 MB/s (Seq. Write)

Connectivity and Battery Life

This Lenovo tablet comes with the usual connectivity features like 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, and GPS. Although these are common, these features are essential if you’re going to use it for online learning, so we’re glad that this device has these. For the battery, the 5,000mAh cell will give you almost a day under moderate usage. In our experience, it can last up to 18 hours when used for tasks like web browsing, social media, and some streaming.

Conclusion

The Lenovo Smart Tab M10 FHD Plus offers a nice display, premium build, decent performance, good speakers, LTE connectivity, a smart charging dock, and long battery life. At PHP 13,990 (4GB + 64GB), it can be a bit pricey for some but still competitive considering the price jump you’ll have to take if you want a beefier tablet. It would have been nicer, though, if it came with a pen and an upgrade to Android 10. Still, given its functionality and features, we can recommend this tablet for students looking for an online learning device.

Lenovo Smart Tab M10 FHD Plus specs:
10.3″ FHD (1920 x 1200) IPS, TDDI, touchscreen, 220 PPI, 330 nits
MediaTek Helio P22 2.3GHz, octa-core
Integrated IMG GE8320 GPU
2GB, 4GB LPDDR4 RAM
32GB, 64GB storage
microSD card (Expandable up to 256GB)
8MP rear camera
5MP front camera
3.5mm audio port
Single-SIM nano
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou
FM Radio
Dolby Audio Speakers
USB Type-C port
Android 9 Pie
5,000mAh battery
244.2mm x 153.3mm x 8.15mm
460g
Iron Grey