Lenovo’s P11 Pro 2nd Gen – a multi-purpose tab

Lenovo has long had more of a hold on India’s tablet market than one would imagine, even trumping Apple and Samsung with its 26% share, according to Cyber Media Research (CMR). The company has a range of tablets of which the P11 Pro has been one of the most premium. It has evidently fared well enough to merit the launch of a second generation, that too, without much of a price increase. The Lenovo P11 Pro 2nd Gen retails for ₹39,999 with an additional ₹5,499 for a keyboard case. A digital pen comes bundled. All of this together is not just reasonable but makes for quite a complete package.

The P11 Pro comes in a very neat box with everything in place and nicely packaged, especially if you opt for the keyboard component — highly recommended, because it increases functionality. Even if you consider buying a tablet purely for entertainment or for kids to game on, the keyboard will make it usable for tasks you hadn’t planned on, but which are tackled easily on the tablet.

Multi-function design

Compared with its 1st gen, the P11 Pro has some important design changes. What used to be an inordinately elongated or tall tablet is now a far more reasonable shape and can be used easily in either landscape or portrait orientation. One might think of the form factor as more ‘natural’ and expected rather than outlandish because of being skewed to cater to landscape use.

This is a fairly elegant tablet, with a two-tone back which looks both metallic and glassy though it actually isn’t. The keyboard and the back cover are in two parts but both snap on the tablet magnetically and with pogo pins. The back cover happens to be one of the best parts of this package because it has a pull-out flap, which serves as a sturdy and steady stand. It’s with this that you can use the tablet as a canvas or a small TV or a presentation device. Another magnetic flap towards the top of the cover opens to reveal a slot for the digital pen or Precision Pen, to use Lenovo’s name for it. Ensconced here the pen stays safe. The pen also snaps on to the top edge of the tablet, which is where it should rest, just within reach, while one is working. Precision Pen 3 is actually quite nice to use, though not in the league of Apple’s Pencil or Samsung’s S-Pen. It does have responsivity and smoothness and some functions that are specific to its use.

Add the keyboard and the P11 Pro becomes a notebook — as long as you work with ‘light’ and mobile versions of software and are not heavily Windows-dependent. The keyboard has a touchpad, which can be used for interesting multi-tasking quick actions with mere swipes and taps.

Spacious screen

Numerous design tweaks have refined the P11 Pro 2nd Gen to make it light and usable and maximise display real-estate. The screen itself is now 11.2 inches across and an OLED with a 1536 x 2560 pixel resolution. It supports HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and even has a 120Hz refresh rate. Colours are deep and strong with full fledged blacks generating good contrasts and viewing angles. The display is actually quite a pleasure to work with. Brightness is at 420 nits and peaks at 600 nits -- good for indoor use.

The P11 Pro relies on face recognition for security and doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor. One can, of course, use patterns and pins to keep the device locked as well. Looking through settings, one will also find more granular security options such as permission to access the camera, etc.

The camera set up on the P11 Pro includes a 13 megapixel rear camera, which you can use for scanning documents, for example. The front camera is positioned for landscape orientation and video calls. Firing it up results in a lot of brightness on the face and not the best colours, but it will do for the average call. The cameras themselves are also average, as is typically the case with tablets in the Android space.

The tablet doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack but it does have quad JBL tuned speakers, which sound good enough to listen to music with without necessarily connecting to external speakers. They also make for some pleasurable movie watching.

This generation of the P11 Pro tablet bumps up other hardware specs as well. RAM is now 8GB LPDDR4X, not 6GB, and the UFS 3.1 storage is 256GB. There’s a tray for a memory card that can accommodate up to an additional 1TB. Another feature some users may miss is cellular connectivity, which this tablet lacks. It’s a Wi-Fi only tablet and to use it on the move one will need to create a hotspot on a phone and connect that to the tablet.

Android 12 runs this device. Lenovo has done a number of modifications which thankfully don’t get in the way. Upgrades will be supported for two years. The apps on board are all from Lenovo and Google, except for Netflix. Performance is fast enough, except for the occasional crash. Unfortunately, Android has never been rebuilt for tablets and though Google has an Android-L meant for tabs, many apps still don’t scale well for tablet screens. This is where the iPad has an edge over Android tablets. On the other hand, the high-end apps in the Apple ecosystem can be expensive.

A fairly big battery (8,200mAh) keeps the P11 Pro going. It supports 20W charging. A charger is actually provided in the box — a rare occurrence these days. Battery life is pretty good and will see the tablet lasting a workday and more.