Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review

The Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 (starting at $189) is a no-frills, 10-inch Android tablet for folks on a budget. It's a well-built slate with astonishing battery life and great cameras. Unfortunately, its middling performance disappoints. But if you’re just looking for a cheap tablet to watch streaming content and read books, this device serves that purpose.

When compared to the best Android tablets, the Tab M10 Plus falls short. But overall, it’s a pretty good slate, especially for kids or those looking for something more affordable than the iPad. Here are the pros and cons in my full Lenovo Tab M10 Plus review.

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Specs

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Price and configuration

• Starts at $189
• $210 for high-end model

The Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 starts at $189 on Lenovo’s website. This model has a 10.6-inch 2K (2000 x 1200) display, a MediaTek Helio G80 CPU, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The tablet also comes with Android 12 installed.

For $210, you can get the Tab M10 Plus with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. This is the model we tested and reviewed.

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Design

• Thin and light
• Comes in two colors

The Tab M10 Plus is a modest tablet featuring an elegant aluminum-alloy unibody design with a dual-tone finish. It comes in either Storm Grey or Frost Blue. I like the Storm Grey color of our review unit, though the Frost Blue looks striking as well. Despite its thin profile, it’s a sturdy slate.

The tablet has a profile of 6.25 x 9.89 x 0.29 inches and a weight of 1.03 pounds. Because it’s so light, the Tab M10 is comfortable to hold for extended periods of time. This also makes the slate an unobtrusive travel device. For comparison, the 9th generation iPad weighs 1.07 pounds. 

There’s a power button located on the top of the M10 Plus, along with two volume buttons and a microSD slot on the right side. Quad speakers adorn the top and bottom. You’ll find the front camera about halfway down the left side, which places it in the top center when you rotate the tablet to landscape mode.

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Display

• Sharp image quality
• Great for watching videos and reading

The Tab M10 Plus’ 10.6-inch screen is an adequate canvas for watching videos from sites like YouTube TV and Netflix. The 2000 x 1200 resolution also ensures sharp image quality.

The trailer for Apple TV’s Ghosted looked impressive on the Tab M10. There are a lot of scenes taking place at night but I had no trouble distinguishing what was happening on the screen. When the action picked up, the 60Hz refresh rate kept up with all the rapid cuts.

I enjoyed reading comics from the DC Universe Infinite app on the Tab M10 Plus. An actual comic book page is larger than this tablet, but the display’s size ensured I was able to clearly read text and make out minute details in the drawings. The Tab M10 Plus is also great for reading e-books from apps like Kindle.

When we got it into our testing lab and pointed our instruments at it the Tab M10 Plus’ panel delivered an average brightness of 373 nits. That’s short of Lenovo's advertised 400 nits but still pretty good for a tablet in this price range, on par with the $174 Nokia T20 (374 nits) but not as bright as the $149 Amazon Fire HD 10 (420 nits).

Color-wise, the Tab M10 Plus’ display covered 112.2% of the sRGB color gamut and 79.4% of the more demanding DCI-P3 color space (closer to 100% is best). The Fire HD 10 (106% / 75.5 %) delivered comparable results, while the Nokia T20 (90.9% / 64.4%) didn’t fare as well on those respective tests.

When we measured the Delta-E value of the screen, where lower numbers point to more color-accurate displays, the Tab M10 Plus scored 0.22. That’s better than the Fire HD 10 (0.37) and Nokia T20 (0.39).

Regarding our lab tests, we’re comparing Lenovo’s Tab M10 Plus from 2023 against tablets from 2021 because the Tab M10 Plus is powered by a MediaTek Helio G80 CPU, an older chip that debuted in smartphones in 2020. Thus, it's comparable to older tablets despite being released years later.

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Audio

• Clear, loud audio
• Great for videos and music

The Tab M10 Plus’ speakers delivered great sound when watching videos or listening to podcasts. Even with the volume cranked to max when watching the aforementioned Ghosted video, everything came through crystal clear, with no distortion or other audio hiccups.

I fired up Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” to test how the speakers handle music and was pleasantly surprised. Though there wasn’t as much bass as I would have liked, the vocals and instruments sounded decent. But if you’re not happy with the audio quality, you can use the headphone jack to plug in one of the best headphones or use Bluetooth to connect one of the best wireless earbuds. 

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Performance

• Middling performance
• Slow compared to older, cheaper tablets

The Tab M10 Plus is a solid little device for viewing videos and for reading. However, its MediaTek Helio G80 CPU and 4GB of RAM (if you splurge for the high-end model) don’t offer great performance. In fact, they leave a lot to be desired.

During my testing, I found the tablet’s performance sluggish when opening apps. There was always a small delay between the time I tapped on an app and when it booted up. This was also true when I used apps. For instance, flipping through comic book pages on the DC Universe Infinite app took much longer than on the iPad Air 2022 or Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. Obviously, they’re far more expensive, so the difference in performance makes some sense. 

On Geekbench 5.4, which tests overall CPU speed, the Tab M10 Plus didn’t deliver great results. The tablet scored 348 on the single-core test and 1,234 on the multi-core. These results are almost identical to the Nokia T20, which noticed 347 on single-core and 1,248 on multi-core. However, Amazon’s cheaper Fire HD 10 outperformed it in both tests (1,494 and 6,300, respectively) despite being roughly two years older than the Tab M10 Plus.

The Tab M10 Plus scored 682 and hit 4 frames per second on the 3D Mark Wildlife Unlimited test, which measures graphics performance. That’s better than the Nokia T20, which scored 519 and hit 3 frames per second — but it’s pitiful regardless. A modern game like Genshin Impact stuttered and froze dozens of times just during the intro when I tested it. This tablet isn’t made for playing graphically-demanding games. 

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Cameras

The Tab M10 Plus’ 8MP front and rear cameras are one of its best features. Each delivers solid image quality, capturing images and video with good color accuracy and every key detail in focus. I used the front camera to snap the picture below and found it did a great job of capturing my features , as well as a nice job of subtly blurring the background.

The rear camera is equally sharp. It’s easy to distinguish the different items in our testing lab. I’m not a fan of using tablets to take photos, but if you’re so inclined, you’ll be pleased with the overall picture quality.

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Battery life and charging

• 14-hour battery life
• Long charging times

One of this tablet’s greatest strengths is its impressive battery life. In fact, it managed to last longer than all of its nearest competitors.

On the Tom’s Guide battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the Tab M10 Plus lasted for 14 hours and 9 minutes. That edges out the Nokia T20 (14:04) and lasts longer than the Amazon Fire HD 10 (13:45).

Charging times aren’t exactly quick. In our testing, it took 15 minutes to charge the Tab M10 Plus to 9% and 30 minutes to reach 16% battery capacity. These results are comparable to the Fire HD 10 but much better than the Nokia T20, which took 30 minutes to charge to 6%.

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Software

• Runs Android 12
• Too many pre-installed apps

The Tab M10 Plus comes pre-installed with Android 12. If you’re used to Android then you’ll know what to expect. To learn more, read our full Android 12 review.

Like the Lenovo Yoga Tab 11, this tablet comes with Google Entertainment Space pre-installed. It’s easily accessible from the home screen and collects an assortment of your most used apps in one place — including streaming services, movies, podcasts, TV shows, books and more. It’s a convenient feature for those who want quick access to their favorite apps.

The tablet comes with many apps pre-installed, including games like Swing Man and apps like the Opera browser. This sort of bloatware is easily removed if you don’t want it, but it’s unfortunate that it comes pre-installed at all.

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 review: Verdict

The Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 is a budget Android tablet that delivers middling performance for a decent price. Cheap tablets like this are great for kids and budget-minded shoppers. Despite its unimpressive performance and lack of distinguishing features, the Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 is ideal for people who mainly watch streaming videos or read e-books — especially if you demand long battery life.

If you’re looking for an alternative, the Amazon Fire HD 10 not only offers better performance and almost as much battery life, but it also costs $40 to $60 less than Lenovo’s slate. However, you are stuck working within Amazon’s FireOS operating system, which is more limited than pure Android. If you want more options, check out our guide to the best cheap tablets.

Conversely, if you like Apple products, the iPad 2021 is a solid choice. Sure, it’s a bit long in the tooth at this point, but it still outperforms the Tab M10 Plus Gen 3 by a fair margin and is now regularly discounted to $269 or less.