Sunday, October 4, 2020

Lenovo Smart Tab M8 HD Review

The Lenovo Smart Tab M8 HD is one of the company’s newest offerings in the Philippines, sporting an 8-inch HD display, a Mediatek Helio A22 chipset, 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, a 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, and a 5,000mAh battery. It’s an entry-level device, but can it offer more than that? Let’s find out in our review.

Design and Construction

Lenovo Smart Tab M8 HD has an 8-inch HD display housed in a premium metal design in Iron Grey. Surrounding the screen are narrow bezels where the 2MP front camera rest at the top center in a portrait way. It also has smooth round corners and an overall sleek and slim premium look pack on its 8-inch size body.

Resting at the top edge of the tablet is the 3.5mm audio port along with the speaker grille on the opposing end.

The right side is where the lock/power button and the volume rocker are located.

While on the other side, you’ll see the card tray for a single Nano-SIM card and a microSD card. The docking pin for smart charging is also located on this part.

The Lenovo Smart Tab M8 is tagged as a 2-in-1 device as it has a variant that goes along with a smart charging station. It could be attached to the charging dock that can be placed anywhere convenient at home. The dock can also function as a stand when not charging. Just make sure to properly attach the device on the dock for security as it doesn’t have a magnetic lock.

At the bottom part, you will find the micro USB 2.0 port for charging its 5,000mAh battery and another speaker grille. This tablet has dual speakers powered by Dolby Atmos.

Looking on its back, you will see at the back is a 5MP autofocus rear camera as well as the device’s branding. What’s good with this part is its matte-like finish so that fingerprints won’t stick that much. This tablet is handy with its dimensions of 199.1 x 121.8 x 8.15mm, and it weighs 305g, which is still comfortable to hold even with just one hand.

Display and Multimedia

The device has an 8-inch HD (1280 × 800) IPS display with 350nits brightness delivering vibrant colors and a resolution that is good enough for browsing the internet and social media. However, at 189ppi, you might find it lacking, especially if you’re watching videos for entertainment.

The tablet’s edge, on the other hand, is its audio system powered with dual speakers by Dolby Atmos that deliver a clear and crisp sound resolution.

With Dolby Atmos, music experience can be customized based on the user’s preference, including options such as Dynamic, Movie, Music, and Custom. The Dolby Atmos setting is already pre-installed in the device. Both speakers are located at the top sides of the device’s landscape mode delivering a balanced sound.

Camera

This is a tablet, so the device’s purpose is not generally for photography.

It also has a 5MP rear camera. The rear shooter camera that captures bit grainy photos indoors. You may check out the following rear camera photo samples:

This tablet only has a 2MP front-facing camera, which is not that good for video calls and selfies but can still work fine as long as there’s good lighting in the area. See sample photos below:

OS, UI, Apps

This tablet’s software runs the Android 9 Pie.

It has a Screen Assistant with features like screen recorder, screenshot, do not disturb mode, eye-protection mode, and color mode. It also has a virtual pen allowing to put doodles and notes on the screen. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with a stylus.

What’s good about this tablet is the combination of its Google Assistant feature and the smart charging station. It is also ideal to set up at home. By docking the device to the charging station, it can perform various tasks with voice commands and control other compatible smart gadgets. It also has far-field microphones that can easily pick up the voice command.

The device is also child-friendly with its special Kids Mode setting allows parents or guardians to regulate the content the kids would see. Its parental controls can even set the devices to only allow safe, curated, preloaded content.

Performance and Benchmarks

The Lenovo Smart Tab M8 HD is powered with a MediaTek Helio A22 chipset, Integrated IMG GE8300 GPU, and 2GB of RAM. This should be fine if you’re doing simple tasks such as web and social media browsing and e-book reading. The limited RAM doesn’t make it ideal for multitasking. The also stutters when there are too many apps running in the background. Check out the benchmark scores below:

• AnTuTu v8 – 30,802
• Geekbench 5 – 159 (Single-Core), 462 (Multi-core)
• 3DMark SSE – 469 (OpenGL ES 3.1)
• PCMark Work 2.0 – 4,769 (Performance)
• AndroBench – 280.93 MB/s (Seq. Read), 77.91 MB/s (Seq. Write)

Connectivity and Battery Life

For connectivity, the Smart Tab M8 HD is equipped with LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, and Bluetooth 5.0. On the other side, keeping the phone running is its 5,000mAh battery that could last up to 18 hours of browsing time and up to 12 hours of online video playback time. For charging, it can charge directly through its micro-USB port or via smart charging with the dock.

Conclusion

Given the specs, it’s not something you’d want to have as a productivity device. It’s more like for students looking for a tool where they can stream learning content at home or for anyone who wants to browse the internet or social media accounts casually. The PHP 8,490 (bundled with the smart charging station) seems enticing as well. However, if you don’t need an 8-inch screen, we suggest getting a smartphone instead. There are models out there that can offer you better performance at that price range.

Lenovo Smart Tab M8 specs:
8-inch HD IPS LCD (1280 x 800)
MediaTek Helio A22 2.0GHz quad-core
Integrated IMG GE8300 GPU
2GB RAM
32GB storage
microSD card
5MP rear camera
2MP 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
Micro USB 2.0
Android 9 Pie
5,000mAh battery
199.1mm x 121.8mm x 8.15mm
305g
Iron Grey