ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus is on sale right now for $549.
- It’s a slam dunk tablet with a brilliant display, great speakers, and comes with a keyboard, case, and stylus.
- In laptop mode, it’s better for simpler tasks.
Lenovo’s Yoga Tab Plus is a well-rounded 13-inch tablet that comes with a keyboard, case, and stylus, offering all the primary use cases you can ask for from a tablet straight out of the box.
It features a 12.7-inch, 3K (2944 x 1840) LTPS glossy display that looks fantastic, with up to 900 nits of brightness and a 144Hz refresh rate for the smooth and vivid experience you’d expect from a premium tablet. For reference, that’s brighter than both the 13-inch iPad Air and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S10+.
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The thin bezels make the screen seem larger than it is, and in full screen is satisfying for entertainment and media playback with support for Dolby Vision. The 11.45-inch screen size is, to me, the sweet spot: it’s small enough to be portable but also large enough to be seen across the room if you’re watching something in the kitchen while cooking, for example.
Even though there’s no OLED option, I don’t think it loses out on much because of how bright and vivid the screen is. Not everything needs to be an OLED to be considered premium, and the display on this tablet is certainly that.
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Six speakers back up the visuals: two solo tweeters and four SLS subwoofers for rich audio whether you’re watching a movie or gaming. Video content that’s not reliant on high-quality audio — like TV shows or the news — sounds especially good on this tablet, with clear dialogue and a good amount of separation.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
For all the top-end hardware packed onto this tablet, the software might not cut it for everyone. Tablets in general have historically made too many sacrifices to be on the same level as laptops, but that gap is narrowing on other devices. For example, Apple iPads’ next operating system, iPadOS 26, introduces a host of MacBook-like features like better window controls, multitasking, and interface improvements that streamline the experience.
For Windows devices, Microsoft’s Surface Pro continues to evolve as well, with a 12-inch version released earlier this year, merging the ultraportable tablet experience and complete PC into one.
By comparison, AndroidOS isn’t quite as polished of an experience when it comes to working in PC mode, and much of that comes with navigating the UI. For example, floating menus often pop up unannounced or cause windows to be resized, while gestures don’t always stick or result in misclicks. Performance as a whole just isn’t as snappy.
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Connecting to an external monitor can also be hit or miss. The Gen 1 USB-C port juts out from the right side of the tablet, and performance will vary based on what you’re connecting to. I tried connecting the Yoga Tab Plus to my dual-monitor setup in the office but it resulted in a freeze up. Connecting to a single monitor yielded better results.
That being said, the included keyboard is actually quite good, with satisfying key travel, spacious design, and a responsive trackpad that’s just big enough. In fact, it competes with the keyboard on the Surface Pro, which is more expensive and sold separately.
Connecting the tablet to the keyboard is easy, with a strong — almost aggressive — magnetic click that joins the two pieces from as far as an inch apart. My number one issue with using the tablet in laptop mode, however, is that with the keyboard attached, the tablet has to be positioned a certain way; otherwise, the tablet tends to bounce and wobble as you type.
The included stylus also offers surprisingly good performance, with haptic feedback on the tablet during sketching and writing, palm rejection, and support for quick gestures along the length of the pen itself. When the stylus is activated, it floats a small icon for quick access to features, including Circle to Search, and Quick Jot, which lets you mark up whatever is currently on your screen.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
The stylus is very responsive, with a satisfying glide on the glossy surface, and zero input lag during my testing. The quick access to stylus features and their performance made for a far more pleasing experience as a writing tablet than I expected, even competing with premium devices like the ReMarkable Paper Pro.
In that sense, I’d say this tablet is ideal for someone who likes a pen experience, and plans on using the tablet to review or edit documents or jot notes on visual projects, rather than a dedicated replacement for a Windows, MacOS, or ChromeOS (which, by the way, would have been awesome) laptop.
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Finally, closing out the trifecta of tablet hardware features is the battery, and like the display and speakers, it doesn’t disappoint. The 10,200MAh battery charges at 45Wh, similar to competing tablets, and takes a little over an hour to fully charge.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor is power efficient both during use and when idle, dropping to a trickle when not in use. Lenovo says you’ll get about 11 hours of continual use, and I found that to be mostly accurate. Continual video playback will warrant upwards of 8 hours depending on brightness and refresh rate, but intermittent use will give you much longer battery life lasting several days.
ZDNET’s buying advice
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
The Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus is a joy to use, and offers a respectable value for such a versatile device. Its display is gorgeous and bright, the battery life is great, it has beefy speakers, and it comes with a keyboard and stylus – both of which are premium and functional.
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However, while its hardware delivers, its OS is not as polished in laptop mode as competing tablets. As such, I’d recommend this tablet for people looking for a true tablet or drawing device, but don’t intend on clocking in hours at the office with it.
If you’re looking for a tablet you can do more demanding work on, you might prefer an iPad (especially after the release of iPadOS 26), or a premium Windows tablet like the Microsoft Surface Pro. Ultimately, however, it excels in all the right areas with a ton of bang for your buck, and one of the first tablets I’d recommend in this size.
