A super-affordable tablet, the Lenovo Tab M9, hit the shelves recently. I’ve been trying it out for a couple of weeks and here is the low-down on where it impresses, and where it doesn’t. 

Design and display

Owing to its compact form factor, the Lenovo Tab M9 weighs just under 350 grams. It has a 9-inch HD display, which offers just a little more screen space than the budget tablets that have always inundated the market. There’s a unique design running through the midsection on the rear panel, which does help the tablet stand out a bit. 

Lenovo says the 9-inch IPS display is designed to be anti-fingerprint, and it’s true to a great extent. Despite daily use, the screen remains smudge-free for the most part. Brightness levels taper off at 400 nits, which is more than sufficient for indoors and good enough for outdoor viewing. 

Just having come off a device with a much higher refresh rates, I could see the lack of smoothness in scrolling on the 60 Hz panel. If you aren’t using another device with a much higher refresh rate, this might not really stand out. 

In covering the basics of delivering a decent viewing experience on Netflix and YouTube, the Lenovo Tab M9 does a pretty good job. The tab has dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos programmed in, so it delivers on the acoustics front as well. 

Also read: Xiaomi Pad 6 Review: Unleashing the power of media and gaming

I loved the transparent folio case with a kickstand that the device ships with. It was super handy to use in both portrait and landscape orientations. And my family was relieved that I would no longer use them as a base to prop yet another tablet against as we unwind in bed. 

Camera 

Aside from the fact that it’s just plain weird to whip out a tablet to take photos, the setup on the Lenovo Tab M9 also doesn’t give one much reason to do so. The tablet is equipped with a 2-MP front camera and an 8-MP primary camera. Pictures taken indoors, with decent lighting turned out to be quite blurry.

Outdoors, in daylight, photos are rendered slightly better with a little more detail. However, I wouldn’t turn to this one to capture many memories. There’s also a face-unlock feature which works fairly snappily. 

Tech specs 

The tab runs on the MediaTek Helio G80 processor - which powers the likes of the Samsung Galaxy A13 and Vivo Y21s smartphones. Built to facilitate mobile gaming at an affordable price, the processor does its job well on the tab. The tablet runs Android 12 - which is a bit of a step back considering most tablets released this year run on Android 13. The only OS upgrade is due this year, although Lenovo has promised three years of security patches. 

The unit I reviewed has 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of storage space, although there’s a small 32 GB variant as well. Overall, there were no hitches in performance - switching between apps, playing games for an extended period of time, and so on. 

Also read: Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro review: Fast, and won’t make you furious! 

Battery life 

There’s an integrated 5,100mAh battery in the Tab M9 which kept me company for up to two devices - I mainly used the device for casual gaming and watching Netflix. For a budget tablet, this is fairly alright. It often took a little more than two hours to charge fully from zero, and this doesn’t really lure in consumers who are used to faster-charging speeds on their primary devices. However, this kind of compromise is typical of an entry-level gadget experience. 

Verdict 

The Lenovo Tab M9 might be a good fit for someone who needs a big-screen device for non-intense media consumption - regular YouTube scrolling, OTT-watching, and idle gaming scenarios. If you’re looking for an amazing display, really fast refresh rates and hardcore mobile gaming, then this isn’t the device for you. 

About Lenovo Tab M9
Price - ₹12,999 
Pros - Compact companion, decent display, satisfactory battery life
Cons - Camera quality, charging time
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