Lenovo Tab 2 A10 hands-on and first impressions

We’re here at MWC 2015 where Lenovo just unveiled two new budget-friendly Android tablets. We scored some hands-on time with the bigger of the two, dubbed the Lenovo Tab 2 A10. This 10.1-inch tablet is one of the first tablets to feature Dolby ATMOS 3D Cinema audio enhancements, which aims to make your audio experience much clearer. For the price, this tablet has great specifications and a solid build quality. So, is it worth the money? Let’s find out in our hands-on and first impressions of the Lenovo Tab 2 A10!

Design

The A10 has a very minimal design no matter which way you look at it. The majority of the tablet is made of a soft-touch plastic, which will likely be plenty durable for most users. The front bezels have a glossy finish and are very quick to pick up fingerprints. The back design is quite understated, only showing a Lenovo logo in the center. Up top is where the rear-facing camera sits, flanked by the Dolby ATMOS-enhanced speakers. We got hands-on time with the Midnight Blue variant, and there will also be a Pearl White version available at launch.

Display

As the name suggests, the Tab 2 A10 features a 10.1-inch IPS LCD display with a 1920×1200 resolution and offers 218ppi. The display has been offering up great viewing angles and clear color reproduction so far. Bottom-line, just about anything you watch or read should look pretty good, even if there are other tablets out there that certainly offer higher resolution displays.

Performance and hardware

The Wifi-only model features a 1.5GHz quad-core 64-bit MediaTek MT8165 processor, and the LTE model brings a 1.5GHz quad-core 64-bit MediaTek MT8732 processor. Both tablets are backed by 2GB of RAM. In our time with the device so far, these processors have not slowed down a bit. Moving through Lenovo’s software is lag-free, and switching between multiple apps didn’t give us any problems.

One of the biggest reasons to buy this tablet is for the speakers. Both variants feature Dolby ATMOS 3D Cinema audio enhancements which has actually worked out quite well so far. The speakers are rear-facing, which isn’t the most ideal location on the tablet. With that said, the speakers are difficult to cover up when holding the tablet either in landscape or portrait, which is nice to see. The Dolby ATMOS-enhanced speakers really give off quality surround sound no matter what audio we listened to. The audio tech also works well with headphones, so you’ll get a great audio experience no matter which way you like to listen.

The tablet features a 7200mAh battery, which Lenovo says will allow the tablet to last up to ten hours of use. Obviously we haven’t tested the battery in full yet, but the 7200mAh capacity should be enough to make it through multiple days of use on a single charge. The tablets also come with an 8MP rear-facing camera and a 5MP front-facing camera. Don’t expect anything groundbreaking in terms of image quality, but the cameras are there if you need to snap a quick picture.

You’ll also get 16GB of on-board storage with both variants, though there is room for MicroSD expansion up to 32GB. Overall, if you can get past the low storage amount, this seems like a great tablet for viewing all types of multimedia content.

Software

The software is similar to what we’ve seen on many other Lenovo products in the past. The software is minimalistic and easy-to-use. In turn, it’s much easier on the processor so the UI and apps will run smoothly. The current software is running Android 4.4 KitKat, though Lenovo promises a software update to Android 5.0 Lollipop sometime in June.

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Wrap up

That was our quick look at the Lenovo Tab 2 A10! Overall, the device is simple, fast, and features great audio quality across the board. The Wifi-only version will launch in April starting at $199, and the LTE model will start at $279. This isn’t the most feature-packed tablet we’ve ever used, but if you’re looking for a great multimedia-centric tablet at a reasonably low price, you may want to consider this one.