Lenovo Tab M8 HD

Slow and the screen haptics regularly fail – This device worked okay for about a year and then the screen would often not respond to touch o the top half of the device. It has always been slow though and struggles with anything beyond simple web browsing. I will not be buying any more Lenovo products. I bought an Apple IPad and it has been working perfectly for a year now. Show details

Purchased for a Basic Need and Requirement – I purchased the Lenovo m8 to fix and mount in my Car, ultimately to relieve my Mobile phone from Music, GPS, Car APPS , googling when needed. I figured my requirement was fairly basic. My mid range mobile phone handled each of these with ease, but I given I travel so much, it made sense to purpose the mob phone as a Mob Phone and get a separate… Read more

device to run everything else.

The little research I did, suggested this unit would be more then suffice. The exterior case, battery life and screen are all impressive. Screen is crisp and clear, and I get around 6 ish of play time, 1-2 weeks of standby time. It looks quality.

Unfortunately the power / ability isnt as impressive. Initially I noticed my primary apps I downloaded ( 3 music apps), wouldnt Auto Rotate to landscape, which was a big issue for me considering I had mounted in car. I went back into store to learn other lenovo models has no problem with this, but the m8 on display would do the same as the one I purchased. I spoke with Lenovo and it would appear it was a bug with the release of android running on the m8. They didnt really offer a solution, so I had to download an landscape app, that allowed these apps to work in landscape. Was a bit of messing around. Following I setup all apps, and tested.

I had 1 radio app, 1 streaming music app, Google Maps, Google Chrome, youtube and some basic car apps installed (fuel finder, dash app, ODE app) I paired the unit with a 4g hotspot I have in car. (which I use all the time) Then tested apps. Unfortunately it struggled with most things, it gets really laggy after using a few apps, ie , youtube then google. Its also not good for multistasking, ie playing music and googling the same time. I often use google maps , stream music , and take calls on my mobile and it work seamlessly. This struggles just to play youtube music at times. If you try to use google maps while playing music, you'll be waiting a while for it to respond.

You pay for what you get.

Mixed bag – Does some things really well but some fairly nasty surprises as well. For the price, it's fine. I think it's targeted more at kids rather than geeks like me, so it's probably ideal for the little ones. POSITIVES: Really well-built and stylish, with a nice metal back. Nothing at all like that hollow, plasticky feel I was expecting and would easily… Read more

pass for something twice as expensive (until you turn it on...)

Battery life is the real highlight. I used it to have the Olympics on the background while WFH and it usually still had around 30%-40% left after 8 or so hours.

32GB is pretty good for the price I guess and can be expanded to 128.

It runs basically pure Android without any bloatware or skins from the manufacturer. This model even got an upgrade from version 9 to 10, which on mine was already installed. I would say there is close to 0% chance it will get bumped to the current Android 11, leaving it outdated from the box. My earlier version of this review talked about a lack of security updates. For the time being I'll happily eat those words as it's just got the latest set from August 2021. Lenovo, please keep it up.

NEGATIVES: Display is about a 2/5 - it's a mere 1280 x 800 in a 4K world, but it's also only okay colour-wise and not very bright at all. Max brightness seems about equal to 60% brightness on my iPhone X.

Performance is not great. I agree with other reviewers in that things aren't intolerably slow to load, but the bargain-basement MediaTek Helio processor has real trouble with graphics. Scrolling through apps is jittery and it simply can't handle the gesture animations - I've had to switch to the old Android 3-button system for a tolerable experience.

Speaking of video, that's another letdown. YouTube and Kayo seem to drop frames and just not play that smoothly compared to my other devices. More disappointing than that, device doesn't support the Google Widevine platform that Netflix, Stan, Prime etc. require for HD playback. So you're limited to a disappointing 540p in 2021.

The Face Unlock feature is just 'okay'. It's nothing like Face ID on iPhones, often to the point where entering the passcode would probably be quicker, and only works in good lighting.

Camera is no good at all, I really don't see how it adds any value. My Nokia X6-00 from 2009 took better photos.

I've discovered a few little software niggles worth mentioning as well. The tablet won't automatically sleep - it will just sit there with the screen on for hours on end, if you let it (no matter what the timeout is set to in the settings.) Reboot and it works...for a few days, then the insomnia starts again. Videos will randomly pause with no input - I'm not talking buffering, the video stops as if you've tapped the pause button. The automatic dark mode schedule also simply doesn't work at all. Throughout the software I've also noticed a few little rough edges. One good example is in the screencap I've uploaded of the quick settings panel, you can see the words 'Bluetooth' and 'Dynamic' don't quite fit so the last letter drops down. It's just a little bit 'amateur hour.'

Overall: a real mixed bag of stuff. It looks and feels much more expensive than it is and offers really good battery life, but general performance, graphics, software support, weird glitches and lack of HD streaming video support are pitfalls to watch out for. I suppose for $179, you have to take the good with the bad.