I used this Android tablet for three weeks — and its giant speaker has spoiled me

The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 ($399) is the most unique tablet I’ve ever reviewed. It delivers exceptional sound thanks to the enormous JBL-9 speaker on its back. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s a speaker with a tablet attached! This is the most defining feature, but there’s more to like about Lenovo’s entertainment-focused tablet.

The bright, colorful 12.1-inch 2K display is ideal for watching your favorite videos and movies. The Tab Plus Gen 2 is also great for reading and web browsing. The large speaker can make the tablet uncomfortable to hold for too long, but the handy built-in kickstand balances that out, and you can rotate it for vertical or horizontal viewing.

If you’re looking for a powerful tablet for work, this slate isn’t for you, thanks to its relatively weak MediaTek Dimensity CPU and 8GB of RAM. But if you’re looking for an excellent entertainment machine with the best tablet sound, you should seriously consider the reasonably priced Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2. Find out more in my full review!

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 is an Android tablet built for entertainment.
• Who is it for? For folks who want a tablet to watch videos and that can deliver stellar, punchy sound.
• What does it cost? The Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 is typically $399 but is often discounted. At the time of writing, it’s on sale for $289 on Lenovo’s website.
• What do we like? We like the giant speaker that pumps out phenomenal sound, the handy kickstand, and the vivid 2.5K display.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like that the tablet can be cumbersome to hold for long periods and that its performance isn’t suitable for productivity.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Specs

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: The ups

The Tab Plus Gen 2's giant speaker and rotatable kickstand instantly draw attention, but it also features a sharp, vibrant 12.1-inch display and long-lasting battery life.

Incredible speaker sound

Speaker quality is, at best, a footnote in my tablet reviews, since slates generally produce less-than-stellar sound. With the Tab Plus Gen 2, this is the first thing I want to discuss as it’s the standout feature—so much so that I had already written an entire piece about how the gargantuan speaker on this Android tablet isn’t a gimmick. If you’ll pardon the cliché, the speaker quality is music to your ears.

The JBL 9-Unit Pro speaker system is what makes the magic happen. As its name suggests, there are nine speakers: four tweeters, three woofers, and two passive radiators. Those last two speakers deliver deep bass, while the tweeters handle higher-frequency sounds.

Sound is great out of the box, but to make everything truly sound spectacular, you’ll need to head into the Dolby Atmos sub-menu in sound settings. There are three presets: Dynamic, which identifies the content and automatically adjusts for the best sound; Movie, which provides surround sound and clearer dialogue; and Music, which delivers detailed audio so every note and beat sounds punchy. Music also has presets: Detailed, Balanced, and Warm, plus a manual equalizer.

I’m a hard rock and heavy metal fan, and I’m almost always disappointed by the thin, flat sound from most tablets when listening to these genres. That wasn’t the case here, as everything from death metal bands like Amon Amarth to ‘80s tunes like Stan Bush’s “The Touch” sounded rich, punchy, and loud. Movies and podcasts also sound incredible in Movie Mode, with dialogue coming through clear and crisp.

The presets let you quickly enjoy whatever you’re listening to, but you can also dive into the equalizer settings to truly fine-tune how things sound. Regardless, your ears won’t be disappointed.

Built-in, rotatable kickstand

The other notable design feature is the built-in kickstand. Attached directly to the speaker, the kickstand can rotate 360 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise. This lets you comfortably orient the slate horizontally when watching movies or vertically for reading.

While the rotating kickstand moves smoothly, it firmly stays in place once you’ve set it to your preferred position. And when you’re ready to travel with the slate, the kickstand snaps back into place when you push it inward. This might be a minor thing to some, but rotating the kickstand is also enjoyable since you can feel small bumps along the way.

I enjoy reading digital comics, so I love propping the tablet up on my table in portrait orientation so I don’t have to hold it while I read. The 16:9 aspect ratio is relatively close to a real comic’s trim size, which also helps. Naturally, this is also a great way to read books.

Like the kickstand, the tablet is made of sturdy aluminum that doesn’t bend or flex easily. Even if you won’t hold the tablet very often (more on why shortly), its smooth metal body feels nice against your fingers. I also like how the concave volume and power buttons are on the back and easy to reach when it’s in the horizontal position.

Vivid display

The 12.1-inch (2560 x 1600) display on the Tab Plus Gen 2 might not stand out as much as the huge speaker, but it’s also no slouch. Even without an OLED panel, you get sharp image quality that’s bright and colorful.

When watching the latest trailer for the Street Fighter movie, I was impressed by how good everything looked. The detail and colors on the costumes and super moves pop. And thanks to the smooth 120Hz refresh rate, all the action moved smoothly. For watching movies, TV shows, and other videos, this display gets the job done.

Our lab test confirms what my eyes saw. Color reproduction (sRGB and DCI-P3) is generally oversaturated, which accounts for the vivid colors. Color accuracy (Delta-E) is also on par with other tablets. Those colors truly stand out thanks to the bright SDR and HDR brightness.

As you can see, Lenovo’s tablet quite literally outshines Apple’s iPad 11 and the OnePlus Pad Go 2 in both SDR and HDR brightness with adaptive brightness disabled. In fairness to the iPad, it delivers more natural hues than both Android tablets, since its sRGB and DCI-P3 values are closer to the 100% target.

Epic battery life

If you’re going to spend hours watching videos, then you’ll want a tablet that can last for the long haul. Thankfully, that’s the case here, as the Tab Plus Gen 2 offers astonishing battery life.

In our battery test, which involved continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, Lenovo’s slate lasted 16 hours at 60Hz and 13 hours and 39 minutes at 120Hz. While the OnePlus Pad Go 2 lasted almost 40 minutes longer, Lenovo’s tablet outlasted the iPad by nearly four and a half hours.

I should note that the Tab Plus Gen 2 takes a while to fully charge. In our testing and in my own experience, it took 30 minutes to charge the tablet to 20%. Though you won’t have to charge the battery very often, just keep in mind that you’ll have to wait a while to fully juice it up.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: The Downs

While the Tab Plus Gen 2 excels as an entertainment device, it falls short in some key areas.

Awkward to hold

The giant JBL speaker is the Tab Plus Gen 2’s main selling point, but it can also be a hindrance.

Because the speaker adds bulk to the tablet’s bottom, holding the slate like a traditional tablet can be burdensome. While 1.69 pounds doesn’t sound that heavy, the weight distribution makes the tablet feel heavier.

If you rest the tablet on your lap or use the kickstand to prop it up on your desk, then its weight won’t be an issue. However, this isn’t a slate you can easily hold with one hand, let alone two, for long periods.

Basic performance

I don’t consider this a major drawback since this is an entertainment-focused tablet. Still, if you plan to do serious work on the Tab Plus Gen 2, you might not get the smoothest or fastest experience because of its lackluster performance.

The Tab Plus Gen 2 handles basic tasks like scrolling websites in Google Chrome and reading books on Kindle without issue. However, when I opened multiple apps or Chrome tabs, performance suffered. If I wanted to use this for work, where I typically have 20 to 30 Chrome tabs open, I wouldn't have the smoothest experience.

While the Tab Gen 2 matches the OnePlus Pad Go 2 in both CPU performance (Geekbench 6) and gaming performance (3DMark), these MediaTek Dimensity-powered Android tablets still can’t compete with Apple’s entry-level iPad.

Again, you won’t have a sluggish experience when using this tablet for its intended purpose. Just keep your expectations in check if you try to run heavier workloads or graphically demanding video games.

Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 review: Verdict

I’m an iPad Pro user, so an Android tablet truly has to go above and beyond to impress me. And that’s exactly what the Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2 has done thanks to its amazing sound quality, versatile kickstand, and crisp image quality.

Sure, it’s not powerful for heavy workloads, but if you mostly watch videos or read, this tablet has everything you’d need. The fact that it tops out at $399 is just icing on the proverbial cake. If you’re looking for an iPad alternative for your entertainment needs, don’t ignore the Lenovo Tab Plus Gen 2.

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