The $949.99 Lenovo Tab Extreme is an enormous Android tablet that targets would-be Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra ($1,129) and Apple iPad Pro ($1,099) buyers. Its defining feature is a 14.5-inch 3K display, but it also brings swift performance and extensive battery life to the table. While Lenovo's impressive hardware is more than capable of competing with Apple and Samsung, the Android experience holds the slate back in ways that may matter to mobile pros. Buyers seeking a big, professional-grade tablet will be better served by the 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro, which has a better selection of apps and an entire ecosystem of accessories.
A Not-So-Extreme Design
The Lenovo Tab Extreme looks like a lot of other tablets from the front, meaning it's nearly all screen. It has an aluminum chassis, which keeps the device light, and Lenovo says is 100% recycled. The tablet measures 12.9 by 8.3 by 0.23 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.6 pounds, about a tenth of a pound heavier than the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The weight is well-distributed and the device feels good in the hand, but it can be a bit awkward to hold due to its large size.
The tablet is dominated by a truly gigantic 14.5-inch OLED display, which has a resolution of 3,000 by 1,876 pixels and a refresh rate of 120Hz. It puts out 500 nits of brightness and supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ content. Images and videos look gorgeous on it. Colors are vibrant and, since this is OLED, blacks are nice and deep. The display is easily visible even in direct sunlight, although you may have to find the right angle to see the content and not your fingerprints.
The quarter-inch bezel around the display sometimes melds into the darkness of the OLED, which makes for a nice viewing experience. The front-facing camera is smartly located in the bezel on the long edge, so when you're on a video call you are centered if the tablet is in landscape mode. The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has a larger 14.6-inch display but a lower resolution of 2,960 by 1,848 pixels, while the largest iPad Pro features a 12.9-inch mini LED display with a resolution of 2,732 by 2,058 pixels. Both have the same 120Hz refresh rate.
When watching full-screen videos on the Tab Extreme, I needed to tilt the screen a little or extend my arms out a bit to view the full picture because the display is so big. When the tablet is paired with its keyboard accessory, the combo resembles a laptop and the display is better positioned for full-screen video viewing.
(Credit: Iyaz Akhtar)A fingerprint scanner is built into the power button, which is located on the top right corner of the tablet when held in portrait orientation. The sensor is not the best; I had trouble getting it to register my fingerprint on a number of tries. There are two individual volume buttons on the right side near the power button, both of which feel sturdy and responsive. Two USB-C ports are located on the bottom edge and both support quick charging, reverse charging, and audio out. The centered port is USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 and can output to a secondary display. The other is a USB-C 2.0 port and supports DisplayPort in, meaning you can attach your PC to the tablet and use it as a secondary screen. The iPad Pro and Galaxy Tab S8 have only one USB-C port each.
There are two speaker grills on the top short edge and two more on the bottom. There are a total of eight internal JBL speakers and Lenovo says they are optimized with Dolby Atmos. The speakers are clear at any volume, do not distort at loud volumes, and the bass is surprisingly robust. When playing Metallica's Enter Sandman, we reigstered a maximum volume of 92dB, which filled a medium-sized room quite nicely. Additionally, it's difficult to accidentally block the speakers when you're holding the tablet, so you'll enjoy clear, crisp audio virtually all the time.
The back panel is relatively understated in dark gray except for a shiny rectangular band that incorporates the rear cameras. The band adds a touch of elegance and is practical as it supports the tablet evenly when laid down on a surface; you won't get any corner wobble because of the camera bump. A pill-shaped graphic in the center of the band indicates where you can magnetically attach and charge the included stylus. The magnet isn't very strong and the stylus can be knocked off pretty easily. Thankfully, Lenovo includes a case that not only protects the tablet but also secures the stylus.
Swift Performance and Long Battery Life
The Lenovo Tab Extreme is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 octa-core processor with one 3.05GHz ultra core, three 2.85GHz performance cores, and four 1.8GHz efficiency cores. The tablet packs a generous 12GB of RAM and comes with 256GB of internal storage that can be increased using a microSD card up to 1TB in capacity.
In testing, every app I used worked well and I never had to close background apps to boost performance. At one point, I had 16 apps open concurrently and switching between them was super smooth.
(Credit: Geekbench)Benchmark scores back up these findings. On Geekbench 5, a suite of tests that quantify raw computing power, the Tab Extreme earned 1,180 on the single-core test and 3,834 on the multi-core test, outperforming the iPad Pro's 1,113 and 3,277.
(Credit: PCMark)On the PCMark Work 3.0 test, the Lenovo Tab Extreme garnered a score of 14,307. That's significantly better than the Google Tensor G2-powered Pixel Tablet which scored 10,386, as well as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 (13,807). In real-world usage, the Lenovo Tab Extreme handles app after app without slowing down.
When it comes to gaming, the Tab Extreme holds its own. Genshin Impact averaged 56.57fps when played on medium settings, which is quite impressive. Gameplay was smooth, with rare slowdowns and few dropped frames. Alto's Odyssey, a much less resource-intensive game, ran flawlessly.
A huge 12,300mAh battery consumes the bulk of the tablet's interior, and Lenovo claims up to 12 hours of battery life. In our test, in which we stream HD video over Wi-Fi with the screen at full brightness, the Tab Extreme lasted 12 hours and 53 minutes before being fully depleted. That's quite a bit more than the iPad Pro, which lasted 7 hours and 48 minutes. Lenovo includes a 68W adapter, which will charge the tablet from 0 to 52% in 35 minutes and from 0 to 100% in 1 hour and 25 minutes. That's fairly rapid for a tablet and battery of this size.
The Tab Extreme supports Wi-Fi 6E and hit peak download speeds of 489Mbps and upload speeds of 16.8Mbps when tested on a Wi-Fi 6 access point. For comparison, the Google Pixel Tablet reached 380Mbps down and 15.9Mbps up when tested in the same spot. In testing the tablet as far away as I could from the access point in my New York City apartment, the numbers for the Tab Extreme dropped to 110Mbps down and 13.7Mbps up, while the Pixel Tablet hit 128Mbps down and 14.4Mbps up.
There's no headphone jack, despite the enormous size of the tablet. Instead, there is an included USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter in the box. Bluetooth 5.3 is onboard, so you can also use wireless headphones.
Video Chat in 4K
Two cameras adorn the rear of the Tab Extreme. One is a 13MP sensor with autofocus that can shoot up to 4K video at 30fps, and the other is a 5MP fixed-focus sensor that can capture video up to 1080p at 30fps.
If you're using your Lenovo Tab Extreme and your pet happens to do something cute, you will be able to take a quick snap to preserve the moment, but don't count on top quality. In addition, the rear camera processes skin with an overly smooth appearance—a result of the beauty mode being activated by default, which means fine details like hair and wrinkles are lost. You can turn beauty mode off in the settings. Color accuracy was quite natural in tests. In low light, colors and the overall image looked muddy, but you should be able to see your subject. That said, we don't think most people will be reaching for this gigantic tablet as their main camera.
(Credit: Iyaz Akhtar)The front-facing 13MP camera can capture video up to 4K at 30fps and has a wide 122-degree field of view, which means you can keep the tablet relatively close without your face filling up the entire frame on a video call. When using Google Meet, details looked crisp when we had good lighting, with some slightly muted colors. Low-light performance was similar to the rear cameras with added grain and lost detail.
The Tab Extreme has a quad mic array that picks up voices clearly. When pounding away at the optional keyboard during a test call, the clickety-clack was not audible according to the caller on the other end.
Lenovo Tab Extreme Experience and Software
When you're looking at a 14.5-inch display, you're probably thinking about how many apps you can have up at one time. The Tab Extreme supports up to four split-screen apps and 10 floating windows. Running four apps at the same time is a pretty neat trick, and resizing and rearranging the displayed apps is intuitive. I found the combination of two apps side-by-side and a floating video player to be the most I could really have on the screen and be productive, though your mileage may vary.
(Credit: Lenovo)The floating windows experience can be useful at times. Apps designed for phone screens look more at home in a floating window, as the dimensions are closer to those of an actual phone. They are also resizable, so you can have multiple floating windows arranged in a way that works for you. When pulling up the app drawer, floating windows stay at the topmost layer, meaning you can't see what's under it, including the contents of the app drawer, which seems like an issue that needs to be fixed.
One of the larger issues with the tablet's software is simply Android itself. Many apps are just not built to scale properly on such a big screen. Apps like the Google Play Store waste lots of space in landscape mode, for example, with oversized graphics that would be at home on a 6-inch screen, not a 14.5-inch one. Sometimes there are large dead spaces as certain app elements do not scale to size. While floating windows help make apps appear more properly formatted, better window management software could go a long way. Further, we wish Lenovo included a desktop-like mode similar to Samsung's Dex, considering how large the Tab Extreme's screen is.
Using single apps in full-screen mode is mostly a different story. Browsing the web on the Lenovo Tab Extreme in portrait mode almost feels like holding a newspaper since you can see so much content on the page at a time. Using the tablet as a comic book reader is a wonderful experience; it's like having oversized reprints of your favorite books so you can really enjoy the art on the full page without the need to zoom in on each panel.
If you like to draw, sketching on the Tab Extreme with the included stylus feels natural with no major lag, but palm rejection can be an issue outside of drawing apps. When trying to use the stylus to fill in a URL field or a Google search bar, for example, my palm kept confusing the tablet. This led me to hold the stylus unnaturally if I chose to write in some fields, and eventually led me to not use the stylus at all for small targets.
Like other Lenovo Android tablets, the Tab Extreme comes with some useful apps like Entertainment Space, Google Kids Space, Lenovo Instant Memo, Myscript Calculator 2, and Nebo. You can swipe from the home screen to jump into Entertainment Space, which lets you access all sorts of content from various video, music, and other media streaming services. There's also an app called Freestyle that lets you wirelessly connect the tablet to a Windows machine running a companion app (as long as you sign up for a Lenovo account and you're on the same network). When those apps are running, you can wirelessly extend or mirror your Windows display over to the tablet, as well as your computer's audio. It also supports file sharing and app streaming from the tablet onto your Windows machine. The app is listed as a beta on both the Play Store and the Microsoft Store, but worked reasonably well.
The Lenovo Tab Extreme runs on Android 13 and will get at least three OS upgrades with four years of security updates. Google also gives you three years of OS updates on its Pixel Tablet with at least five years of security updates. Meanwhile, Samsung offers four years of Android updates along with five years of security updates for its latest tablets, which is comforting to those who like to hang onto their devices for a long time.
Get the Optional Keyboard
Lenovo offers the Tab Extreme Keyboard accessory with the tablet as a bundle for $999.99. That extra $50 gets you a high-quality keyboard that is easily worth the price. Lenovo included the keyboard with our review unit.
With the keyboard attached, the tablet doesn't open like a traditional laptop, but more like an iPad with the iPad Magic Keyboard. Pairing the Extreme Tab with the keyboard results in a 3.31-pound package, pushing the weight well into laptop territory. When the keyboard accessory is attached, the rear panel doesn't have a housing for the stylus. Instead, the stylus can be magnetically attached to the bottom edge of the tablet.
(Credit: Iyaz Akhtar)The keyboard itself is a bit on the clacky side, but is comfortable to type on whether on a lap or a desk. Considering how thin the keyboard is, there is very little flex to be had. The keyboard also has some neat extra functions built into the F keys, including a button for screenshots, tiling apps on the screen, and two custom keys. The trackpad is a bit on the smaller side compared with a lot of laptops, but it's responsive and worked well in our tests.
If you think you'll do any amount of typing with the Extreme Tab, we highly suggest getting the bundle with the keyboard. Competitors like the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, the iPad Pro, and the Surface Pro 9 are also improved with their optional keyboard accessories, though it raises the price (and portability) considerably.
Extreme Competition
The Lenovo Tab Extreme is a respectable Android tablet thanks to its beautiful screen, good build quality, speedy performance, and powerful speakers. Lenovo's optional keyboard accessory is built well and converts the tablet into a near-laptop replacement, and the included stylus works well for sketching and drawing. But the competition is fierce. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro and the 14.6-inch Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra both offer a richer experience, with Apple edging out both as far as optimized apps are concerned. If you're all-in on Android and you're looking for a big screen for productivity and entertainment, the Lenovo Tab Extreme is a viable alternative to the Galaxy Tab. If you're looking for a better tablet app and accessory ecosystem, look to the iPad Pro. And if you need a full Windows tablet, the Surface Pro 9 is our top pick.
