Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 hands-on review

Software

The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 runs on Android 12 out of the box. Lenovo has promised support up to Android 14 but we are yet to receive any info on when Android 13 would arrive. The review unit was also stuck on the July 2022 security patch and no further updates were available at the time of writing. This does not leave us with a lot of confidence on timely future software updates from Lenovo.

The software experience on the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 was mostly similar to using stock Android on a Pixel device but with a few added features. For most of us, this is the ideal scenario, as it lets you enjoy the clean Android experience curated by Google and also enjoy some of the additional features that the manufacturer added that aren't available in stock Android.

Unfortunately, using Android in tablet mode continues to be a subpar experience. Several applications still don't support a proper tablet mode for their UI and the few that do often don't make proper use of it. Apps from major corporations like Twitter and Instagram often leave a bad taste in your mouth, with Twitter showing just the smartphone landscape view on tablets and Instagram locking itself in portrait mode. Of course, none of this is Lenovo's fault but it is still the reality of the situation and something you need to be aware of if you want to get an Android tablet, especially to use as a makeshift laptop. This is something iPadOS is lightyears ahead in and the next best thing to having an actual laptop.

Lenovo software

Lenovo has included a few additions that try to make the whole 'tablet as a laptop' experience a bit better. The Productivity mode, which can be enabled through the dropdown notifications, enables a desktop OS-style taskbar at the bottom and lets you open apps in smaller windows rather than in fullscreen mode. Unfortunately, the display size and density of the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 is not suitable for this use, as the taskbar just eats into the already cramped display height in landscape mode and the windowed apps also feel difficult to work in.

The overall experience feels compromised as a result, either due to the lack of proper support from third party developers and sometimes because of Android itself, which still often feels like it was designed only with smartphones in mind and does not work as well as it should on larger devices. If you want to use a tablet for work, the iPad still offers the best experience due to an infinitely better app ecosystem and iPadOS just being a far more mature and well thought out operating system.

Performance

The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 comes with the new MediaTek Kompanio 1300T chipset, which includes a quad-core CPU and the Mali-G77 MC9 GPU. The performance on our review unit with 8GB memory and 256GB storage was decent. Using the device as a productivity tablet was quite a good experience, as things like web browsing, emails, working on documents, image editing, and video conferencing were a breeze. Media consumption is another thing the device is good at, with great performance even while watching high resolution 4K 60fps HDR videos encoded in AV1.

What the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 isn't especially good at is gaming. Demanding games like Genshin Impact struggle to maintain a consistent 60fps or even 30fps without hitching, even when turning the settings down. You can play less demanding titles reasonably well and titles like Alto's Odyssey can also run at 120fps natively without much issue. The keyboard and trackpad, unfortunately, do not work in most games as they were never designed for it. You can use a controller, however, and that does work in many titles.

Since we are on the topic of media, the four speakers in every corner do work quite well. You have Dolby Atmos processing enabled by default, which on compatible content sounds quite good. Even without compatible content, the speakers offer good volume and audio quality. Unfortunately, there is no headphone jack, so you have to rely on either wireless audio or getting your own analog or digital adapter for wired headphones.

As an aside, we wanted to note the Wi-Fi, which while working fine when connected, took an awfully long time to connect to the router after the device was booted up. We measured 23 seconds to connect to the Wi-Fi automatically after booting up, which is several times longer than what most other devices take.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  3685
• Lenovo Tab P11 Pro
  2827
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  2583
• Realme Pad X
  2026
• Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
  1904
• Redmi Pad
  1852

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  901
• Lenovo Tab P11 Pro
  767
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  743
• Realme Pad X
  691
• Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
  615
• Redmi Pad
  554

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  5903
• Lenovo Tab P11 Pro
  4279
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  3396
• Redmi Pad
  1242
• Realme Pad X
  1217
• Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
  1092

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  780161
• Lenovo Tab P11 Pro
  616573
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  555079
• Realme Pad X
  395824
• Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
  355430
• Redmi Pad
  319077

Camera

The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 has somewhat of a barebones camera setup, more so than the previous generation model. The Gen 2 has a single 13 megapixel camera at the back with autofocus and lacks the 5 megapixel fixed focus ultra-wide of the Gen 1. Similarly, on the front is a single 8 megapixel fixed focus camera and lacks the second ToF camera of the Gen 1.

Rear camera samples

Both cameras are of average quality, which is to be expected of a mid-range tablet. The back camera is good enough for scanning documents, which is what it would (and should) be mostly used for and the front camera is fine for video calls on the go.