Lenovo Tab Extreme First Impressions

I have been fascinated by PC alternatives since I was lucky enough to fall into a job that includes reviewing hardware, covering news, and opining on the personal computing industry. In my early days—the mid-1990s—this included the rise of Linux and the decline and then eventual resurgence of the Mac, products that were obviously in the same category as Windows-based PCs. But the past decade has seen the rise of other platforms and other form factors. And in these smartphone-influenced devices, we see a new generation of competition, with different advantages and disadvantages.

I lump ChromeOS into this category, though I know the obvious arguments against it, key among them is that it’s based on Linux and that the devices themselves are familiar and traditional PC form factors. I hear you. But ChromeOS is different because it is so small and lightweight, so simple and easily managed, that it is in many ways a modern retort to the kitchen-sink approach we see from Windows PC makers. It is ChromeOS’ unique differentness, if you will, that I understand makes it special to some but so limiting to me. The notion of a premium Chromebook, for example, is something I still struggle with, despite the inherent excellence of the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook I’m still struggling to write about in any meaningful way.

Regardless of your take on that, ChromeOS exists in some strange middle ground between PCs and devices. And it is the pure devices—those based on the Android and iOS/iPadOS mobile platforms—that represent a true break with the past. Watching Google and Apple respectively advance their mobile systems beyond the confines of content consumption and into the more complicated world of productivity, via a steady stream of software and hardware updates, has been interesting. As with ChromeOS, I still find these platforms to be limiting and thus frustrating from a productivity standpoint, but then I’m coming at this with decades of now deeply rooted workflows and expectations. Those with fewer of my specific needs very well might not, just as is the case with Chromebooks and other ChromeOS devices.

I’ve written this before, but this war comes down to just one thing, whether it’s easier to take a big, complex, and legacy desktop platform like Windows and make it simpler, or whether it’s easier to take a simpler, new mobile platform and evolve it over time to add complex but optional productivity capabilities. To be clear, this is not an ideological war: Microsoft, Apple, and Google are where they are today in client computing out of necessity. Microsoft has contorted Windows to work on tablets and other touch devices, for example, while Apple, unable to make the Mac a dominant platform, saw much, much more success in devices, especially the iPhone. And so here we are.

(Yes, I know that Apple took the macOS platform, simplified it, and added touch- and other device-based capabilities to it in creating what we now call iOS. But that happened over 15 years ago, while Microsoft’s projects, skunkworks and public, to simplify and adapt Windows to new form factors over this same time period all failed. The world of today is simply the result of those and other successes and failures.)

I’m as fascinated by the inroads that Microsoft and PC makers have tried (but mostly failed) to make in the tablet market as I am by the evolution of “true” tablets—Android, iPad—in the reverse directions. Apple, the leader in this market, has contorted the iPad, once a very simple product line, into multiple models, including Pro versions with big screens and sophisticated hardware solutions like the Magic Keyboard, backed by software in what’s now called iPadOS to handle keyboards, mice, and multitasking.

The Android side of this fence is a lot more screwed up, in part because there’s no single standard that crosses the hardware/software divide as there is over in Cupertino. Developers are less likely to adapt Android apps to bigger screens than is the case with the iPad, though that situation is getting a bit better this year, thanks to Google’s outreach efforts and Android improvements. But Google is also part of the problem: over the past several years, it has foisted Android tablets, Chromebook laptops, Chromebook 2-in-1s, and now Android tablets again. And its latest effort, the mostly-great Pixel Tablet, is a pure consumption device that’s trying to compete with the iPad’s past. Those interested in Android-based productivity tablets have pretty much had only one option, in Samsung.

But Samsung isn’t alone. Amazon just released a Fire Max 11 tablet, which can be optionally outfitted with a kickstand case, keyboard with an integrated touchpad, and a smartpen. And Lenovo, that most experimental of PC makers, has long offered Android tablets of various sizes and types. And this year, it is taking its most radical step yet in the nascent market for productivity-focused tablets with the Lenovo Tab Extreme tablet. And I am still trying to wrap my head around this.

The Tab Extreme is a 14.5-inch “everyday tablet,” Lenovo says, alluding to its consumption and entertainment capabilities, which are backed by its stunning 3K OLEN display panel with Dolby Vision HDR and its 8 JBL speakers with Dolby Atmos immersive sound. But there is another half to the Tab Extreme, and it’s all about productivity and creativity: users can multitask across up to 4 split screens and 10 floating windows, can write or draw with the bundled smartpen, and can compute in a semi-traditional fashion using the Tab Extreme Keyboard, a floating keyboard with integrated touchpad that comes with select models and is available separately. Your immediate reaction, that this very closely resembles an iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard, is the correct one.

Then again, the “everyday tablet” bit is perhaps a clue that this device does not exist in the rarified air—and heady price points—of the iPad Pro (or of Samsung’s big premium tablets). It’s not built around an expensive and powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, like that in the Samsung Tab S9 Ultra and Tab S9+. Instead, it uses an octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset, which I had to look up: it’s OK, but it suffers most obviously in GPU performance when compared to the Qualcomm flagship chipset. It’s also not as energy efficient.

Beyond that, the specs look solid enough: 12 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage, and a 12,200 mAh battery that Lenovo claims is good for 12 hours of battery in ideal video playback conditions. (In the PC space, I’d guess the real-world battery is about half that. Here, I’m not so sure.) But it’s not just the battery that raises questions here. 12 GB of what type/speed of RAM? Ditto for storage: is this UFS, and, if so, of what generation? I don’t know yet.

We need to address the screen: this OLED touchscreen panel is stunning, with a 3K (3000 x 1876) resolution, 500 nits of brightness, a 120 Hz refresh rate, and that Dolby Vision/HDR 10+ goodness. It’s TUV-certified for helping reduce eye strain, which is good, but it also has a very wide aspect ratio that makes it more suited to landscape orientation, which is good for productivity work and videos and not so good for reading.

The bezels are quite small, similar to those on my iPad Air.

We also need to address the modular Tab Extreme Keyboard case. It is, on the one hand, a copy of what Apple did with the Magic Keyboard in that it uses magnets to suspend the tablet in space, creating a familiar laptop-like use case.

But it is also unique: there’s a large rectangular hole in the part of the keyboard stand that sits behind the tablet, and Lenovo supplies a removable piece that fits right in there. I wasn’t sure what this was at first—an external touchpad? A battery of some kind?—but eventually learned that it was a magnetic kickstand.

It attaches to the middle back of the tablet, filling the hole in the Tab Extreme Keyboard, and you can position it for use in either landscape or portrait mode, meaning that it can be used to prop up the tablet (in portrait) when you’re reading or in landscape when watching a video without the Tab Extreme Keyboard. Nice. (The Tab Extreme Keyboard does not have a battery.)

Like many computers, the Tab Extreme comes with multiple USB Type-C ports, in this case two, both on the right side (in landscape). The topmost port, in this usage case, is USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, while the bottom port is USB-C 2.0. Both support Display Port out, charging and wired earphone connections.

There is also a microSD slot on the left side, which in select models includes a 5G nano-SIM. Otherwise, you get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, so it’s quite modern. And for those who like cameras in their non-smartphone devices, the Tab Extreme provides dual rear cameras—a 5 MP wide-angle lens and a 13 MP auto-focus lens—in addition to its front-facing 13 MP camera.

From a software perspective, the Tab Extreme comes with Android 13, which is still barely the latest version, and Lenovo promises annual OS upgrades through Android 16 (late 2025), with four years of security updates. The real trick on the software side, of course, is what Lenovo puts on top of Android to enable its unique productivity features. But I’ve only just set it up and haven’t had time yet to investigate. That will happen next.

And that’s the thing. I’ve only just started seeing how this curious mix of hardware and software advances works, and whether Android, or at least this customized version of Android running on unique hardware, represents an advance for Windows’ mobile competitors or is just another experiment that doesn’t live up to the promises.

More soon.