Lenovo Tab S8 Hardware Specifications
Processor: Intel Atom Z3745 Quad-Core @ 1.86 GHz
RAM/ROM: 2GB/16GB
Display: 8″ Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS
Camera: 8MP Autofocus (Main), 1.6MP (Front)
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, BT 4.1
Networks: LTE/DC-HSPA+/GSM
Battery: 4290mAh
Design
The Tab S8 features a rubber-coated surface that cannot be removed at the back and its fingerprint magnet. The display part is slightly smaller than the back, which creates a non-slip but also partly sharp-edged sides. Despite the price of the device, the build quality of the S8 is very solid and does not feel very plastic compares to other tablets that available in the market.
At 7.9mm and 299g, the tablet has a perfect grip feeling with one hand because of its back cover, you generally won’t feel uneasy to hold the tablet in a long durations. This wouldn’t be the best design Lenovo have ever pulled out but maintaining a slim form factor, they deserve a thumbs up for this, you are also able to easily put in your bag during travelling. Its 8-inch display has an IPS panel on it which allow you have extremely good viewing angles and brightness under sunlight.
Software and User Experience
Overall the screen and button responsiveness was very good. It took about 45 seconds to boot from device from being completely powered down. The operating system is a slightly modified version of vanilla KitKat 4.4.2, I able to adapt and find all the settings I needed.
Besides that, the notification and the quick settings panel are able to be pulled down independently and both were very practical to use and it also has a similar navigation bar at the bottom of Nexus devices, with the back button on the left, home button in the middle, recent apps on the right and quick access to setting on the far right.
Luckily the S8 have storage expansion that support microSD up to 32GB, its 16GB built-in memory should be sufficient for most users who often store a library of music or a couple of games. During the review period, I never had to worry about the storage issues, but the battery life isn’t long lasting that I expected it will be.
Camera
Well, you can know it’s a budget-oriented tablet, but Lenovo equip it with an 8 MP camera on the rear and 1.6 MP on the front – and I was generally satisfied with the picture taken with it, I still able to capture object under bright lighting and detail loss under low light.
Benchmarks, Battery Life and Network Quality
Unlike the majority of manufacturers, Lenovo has chosen not to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip and has instead loaded the Tab S8 with a quad-core, 1.3GHz Intel Atom processor and 2GB of RAM. Usually Lenovo will be using either MediaTek or Snapdragon, but this time the Chinese company will be using Intel instead because of the price point that it offers and it might be performing under others competitor. Whilst playing Hearthstone: Heroes of the Warcraft I didn’t experience any sort of lag during game play but slightly lag during game search.
Besides the S8 performance, battery life of the tablet surprise me with the one screen time it has during my gaming period. It will last you a good over 16 hours with some light usage with 4G LTE for web browsing and YouTube. The only downside of this tabletis the heat from the processor, it can heat up to 60’c on the processor which gave me very uncomfortable feeling when holding the tablet.
Verdict
The Lenovo Tab S8 is a powerful yet affordable tablet, all thanks to the low cost Intel processor on-board, you won’t get performance alike NVIDIA Tegra K1 device but you still able to get certain performance alike Snapdragon 400. The things I like about the tablet is the dual front speaker that has Dolby Atmos built in that offers excellent sound quality when watching movies, YouTube, songs, and gaming. The Lenovo Tab S8 price tag that lower than RM1000 makes it an affordable tablet which many people because of its features; solid build, expandable storage, LTE support, dual front-speakers, full HD screen with IPS Panel and a quite decent camera for its price point.
The Good:
+ Looks and feels alright in hand
+ Have a decent screen quality
+ Fast enough as a daily driver
+ 4G LTE standby
+ Decent Battery life
+ Dual front-facing speakers
The Not so Good
– No oleophobic coating
– Reach high temperature easily when gaming
– Too much bloatware installed
We give the Lenovo Tab S8 a score of 7/10
