Artist Review: Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 (2021)

Review unit on loan from Lenovo

Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 is an 11-inch Android tablet with a built-in stand. Official retail price is US $319 and here in Singapore it's SGD 549, currently available from Courts Singapore.

Here are the specs for the tablet:

• Processor: MediaTek® Helio G90T (Octa-Core, 2x A76 @2.05GHz + 6x A55 @2.0GHz)
• RAM: 4GB LPDDR4 RAM
• Storage: 128GB
• OS: Android 11
• Display: 11-inch IPS LCD @ 60Hz
• Resolution: 2000 x 1200
• Brightness: 400 nits
• Battery capacity: 7500 mAh
• Weight: 655g
• Camera: 8MP front and back
• Connectivity: 4G LTE and Wifi
• MicroSD card slot
• USB C (Gen 2 speed)

There's also a larger version of this tablet called Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 which comes with Snapdragon 870, 8 GB RAM, 2160 x 1350 LCD display and HDMI video connection.

Bottom line

You can expect excellent visual and audio experience, smooth and lag-free performance with this tablet. The built-in stand is convenient. Minor downsides are the slow charging time even with fast charge and the 20W charger, and the volume buttons don't orientate when in upside down landscape mode.

The main selling point of the Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 is the Google Kids Space feature. Kids Space is only available for installation on selected Android tablets. I could find it on the Google Play Store but could not install it on my Samsung tablet.

If you're a parent, you'll know how time consuming it is to find kid-friendly educational content online. Kids Space has all these kid-friendly content in the form of games, ebooks, videos and activities. And it has parental controls over usage limit, and filters for apps and content.

If you're just comparing specifications and price, there are other Android tablets at lower prices. For example, the Xiaomi Pad 5 I reviewed recently is just SGD 449 and comes with more RAM (6GB) and a higher resolution display (1440P) with 120Hz refresh rate. But you can't install Kids Space on that Xiaomi tablet.

Things included

These are the items included in the box.

• Quick start guide, warranty info
• Card slot ejection tool
• 20W charger
• USB-A to USB-C cable

The tablet is said to support fast charging however the charging speed with the 20W charger is on the slower side. I did not measure how long it took for a full charge but let's just say that it's a tablet best charged overnight. Using a 30W charger doesn't improve the charging speed significantly.

Battery life is great. I could get 7.5 hours at maximum brightness. With auto brightness and typical non-gaming usage you can get 10-12 hours of use, or more.

This is a good looking tablet. I like the uniform bezels on the sides. Build quality is excellent

The 11-inch IPS LCD display is vibrant and bright, up to 400 nits. It has good viewing angles with minimal changes to colour and brightness at extreme angles. The display is quite reflective but as long as there are no bright lights reflected off the display looks great.

The 2000 x 1200 resolution good enough for an 11-inch tablet. There's slight pixelation but overall visuals can still be considered sharp.

The built-in stand is convenient as you don't have to buy a flip cover to prop up the display.

There are other Lenovo tablets with similar looking design, e.g. Lenovo Smart Tab, so be careful not to get the wrong tablet.

The hinge is stiff and can deploy the tablet at any angle easily. There's a removable rubber piece on the stand for some grip on the table.

This is low angle deployment.

You can also hang this somewhere if you want to.

There are two downward facing speakers behind all those holds at the base, another two speakers on the sides.

There's no rubber on the base except for the stand. When you prop up the tablet and tap on the tablet, e.g. typing, the tablet can move because there's no enough grip on the table. You have to tap softly on the screen to prevent the tablet from moving.

Alternatively, you can get a rubber case for the tablet which will provide rubberised edges for more grip on the table. The tablet weighs 655g and the extra case will make the tablet heavier though.

The USB-C charging and data port has USB 2 transfer speeds. The tablet can't output video.

Power and volume buttons, SIM and microSD card slot are on this side.

The 2-in-1 card slot can hold a nano SIM and microSD card. There's only the 4G LTE + Wifi model. There's no Wifi-only model.

The back of the tablet has this nice fabric texture quite similar to the texture you find on jeans.

The tablet uses the MediaTek Helio G90T which benchmarks 20% slower compared to Snapdragon 855. In the real world, the performance of the tablet is smooth and lag-free even with multi-tasking, multiple apps and browser tabs open. Web pages load fast.

You can even game on this tablet. I played Genshin Impact and the game animation is smooth.

Lenovo has their own UI on top of Android 11. The experience is very stock Android like except with a more polished look. It's good user experience.

Lenovo's UI is easy to navigate and has some nice features. There's double-tap to wake the display which I use often to check the time. Auto-brightness has learning capability. You can adjust the brightness if auto-brightness is wrong and the software will learn and adjust the brightness according in the future to your preference, and it works really well.

Bloatware is minimal.

On the packaging box and their website, Lenovo has Entertainment Space as a feature/app pre-installed. This is kinda like Google Play Store but focuses on movies, games and eBooks as content available for purchase. The main difference between Google Play Store is the user interface looks better. You can also get your movies, games and eBooks from Google Play Store.

Entertainment Space is also available for installation only on select Android tablets.

You can expect excellent visual and audio quality from this tablet. Audio quality from the 4-way JBL speakers is excellent in the form of clarity and volume. When you have the tablet propped up, audio from the downward facing speakers will bounce off the table towards you.

Kids Space is the main selling point of this tablet.

Buying a tablet for young children is easy but finding kid-friendly educational content is time consuming. You can search Youtube for free kid-friendly content but you will still need to have some keywords in mind before you can search.

Kids Space is a separate account on the tablet with kid-friendly educational content in the form of videos, games, ebooks and activities. It's extremely convenient to have all these kid educational content in a single location. From what I can see, the content seems to be made for kids 3 - 12 years old. That's also the age limit to have a so called kids Google account with parental supervision.

Kids Space is only available for installation on selected Android tablets, and Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 is one of them. You can find out more information regarding Kids Space at https://families.google.com/kidsspace/

Other than kids content, there are also parental controls. There are time limits, bed time settings, approval for app installation and filter for content.

You can switch from Kids Space to your own account by creating different accounts, possible with Android.

Stylus support

This tablet supports Lenovo Precision Pen 2 which is sold separately. Lenovo Precision Pen 2 is an active stylus that has pressure sensitivity and palm rejection. The pen's powered by a built-in rechargeable battery with USB-C charging.

Unfortunately, pen performance isn't that good for drawing and writing on this tablet.

Main issue is when slow diagonal lines are affected by visible jitter or wobble. Lines can be smooth when you draw faster but sometimes you'll want to draw slow to get some precision but the lines will be affected by jitter.

The sketch at the bottom was drawn with normal speed, and there are lines affected by jitter which affects the drawing.

Clip Studiio Paint has similar jitter/wobble issues with slow diagonal lines. The sketch was drawn slightly faster so the lines are smoother.

This was drawn with Concepts and there's line jitter as well.

So this line jitter or wobble issue is likely hardware related.

Writing performance is slightly better because when writing, we write fast so lines will be straighter or smoother.

However when writing too fast, some strokes may not register properly and may not appear. See the letter E in the first line on the right side, and the last x on the second line. This app is Wacom Bamboo Paper and the lines are quite smooth overall.

This app is Squid. The visual quality (pixelation) of the strokes isn't good but that's a software issue. Here again there are some strokes which are not registered properly, e.g. i in quick and x in fox.

This is Microsoft OneNote. Handwriting performance isn't that good too. My handwriting style wasn't captured that accurately, just as you see in Squid. When it comes to handwriting, Wacom Bamboo Paper performs better.

Also when writing, some of these note taking apps won't rotate the ruled line page, which means it's better to write while the tablet is in portrait orientation. With the tablet in portrait orientation and on the tablet, the hinge side will prop up the tablet so you will be writing at a tilted angle.

Conclusion

The Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 is a tablet with terrific visual and audio quality, and has smooth lag-free performance with excellent battery life. The built-in stand is a bonus.

However, the main selling feature for this tablet is Kids Space which is only available on selected Android tablets. If you're just comparing specifications, you can certainly find other Android tablets with rather similar specifications at lower prices. You can save your money and spend the time to curate kids content for your kid. You have the option.

The main target market for this tablet is parents with kids. If you want to get an Android tablet that already comes with content for kids, this tablet is a compelling choice, one I can recommend easily.

And if you want a larger display, there's the Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 with slightly better specifications priced at US $679, which is noticeably more expensive than the US $319 smaller model.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Good looking design
+ Solid build quality
+ Built-in stand
+ Vibrant, bright and sharp display
+ Good viewing angles
+ Excellent audio quality
+ Entertainment Space for one-stop entertainment source
+ Kids Space with kid-friendly content and parental control
+ Smooth lag-free performance
+ Excellent battery life
- Long battery charging time
- Could use more grip on the tablet base
- Volume buttons don't orientate when tablet is upside down in landscape mode
- Heavier than other 11-inch tablets due to the built-in stand
- Pen performance isn't that good for writing and drawing

Where to buy

You can find the Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 available for purchase from Lenovo's website.

Here in Singapore, it's currently available for sale from Courts Singapore at SGD $549.