The Lenovo Tab Plus entertainment powerhouse is finally available in the US at a reasonable price

Simply and yet somehow confusingly named Lenovo Tab Plus, the company’s latest mid-range Android slate was unveiled with quite a bit of fanfare back in June and commercially released stateside in total discretion at some point in the last few days.

Interestingly, the “premium” entertainment-centric 11.5-incher appears to be available in a single 256GB storage configuration through Lenovo’s official US website at $319.99 and for 15 bucks less than that on Amazon with just 128 gigs of digital hoarding room and a folio case included.

Decent specs all around and a big standout

Both of those options seem very competitively priced for what they bring to the table, which includes the following key specs:

MediaTek Helio G99 processor;
Android 14;
8GB RAM (in both 128 and 256GB storage variants);
11.5-inch TFT LCD screen with 90Hz refresh rate technology and 2000 x 1200 pixel resolution;
8,600mAh battery;
45W fast charging support;
Eight JBL speakers tuned with Dolby Atmos;
8MP rear-facing camera;
8MP front-facing camera;
microSD card slot;
USB 2.0 port;
Bluetooth 5.2;
174.25 x 268.3 x 7.77mm dimensions;
650 grams weight;
Upgradable until Android 16;
Security updates guaranteed until January 2028.

For the most part, the above list looks… pretty standard for a solid budget tablet in 2024. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying any of those specifications are bad, but I don’t expect you to get super-excited about a decidedly middling Helio G99 SoC, 90Hz refresh rate-capable display, or even 8 gigs of RAM.

The Lenovo Tab Plus packs a grand total of eight powerful JBL speakers. | Image Credit — PhoneArena

But then you’ve got those eight Dolby Atmos-powered JBL speakers, which sound positively mind-blowing by any modern standard. Lenovo claims that the “Hi-Fi system” on the affordable Tab Plus can deliver up to 26W of stereo power, cutting static noise and boosting the clarity of your audio content with a massive 22cc speaker box.

This bad boy’s four matrix tweeters and four force-balanced woofers sound like they could beat the performance of all the best Android tablets out there today (regardless of their price point), potentially rivaling the audio prowess of many dedicated mid-range speakers (and smart speakers) as well.

By the way, the Lenovo Tab Plus just so happens to be advertised specifically as a portable Bluetooth speaker replacement in addition to an all-purpose entertainment tablet, coming with a handy integrated kickstand and an aptly named “Bluetooth speaker mode” that aims to “redefine personal entertainment” with a “perfect blend of visual and auditory wonder.”

Otherwise put, this device is more or less positioned as a direct rival for Google’s versatile Pixel Tablet, which comes with a separate charging speaker dock that’s nowhere near as powerful as it is hefty.

Big tablet, big battery, big overall value proposition

Heftiness, alas, is kind of a problem for the Lenovo Tab Plus as well, which weighs a whopping 160 grams or so more than a Pixel Tablet (sans dock) while measuring an impressively thin 7.77mm… that unfortunately goes up to over 13.5mm when taking the speaker bump/kickstand into consideration.

Some of that heft is of course put to good use from a battery capacity standpoint, and for a budget-friendly product, the Lenovo Tab Plus comes with excellent charging capabilities too. The long-term software support also sounds very solid (especially by Lenovo’s standards), although I’m sure you already know that Google essentially has no rival in that department.

But the Pixel Tablet remains costlier than the Lenovo Tab Plus, not to mention (seemingly) humbler in a few key areas (starting, of course, with speaker power), so at least on paper, this newbie’s overall bang for your buck looks extremely hard to beat.

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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian’s passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for ‘adequate’ over ‘overpriced’.

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Decent specs all around and a big standout

Big tablet, big battery, big overall value proposition

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