At Mobile World Congress, Lenovo is introducing two new Android tablet workhorses. The Lenovo Tab 2 A8 and A10 may be from the same family, but they address slightly different usage models and price points, which is why they use different internal configurations based on MediaTek processors.
What they have in common is that they are built around the idea that multimedia needs will be handled well, including Dolby Atmos playback capabilities, and that both tablets can connect to LTE networks. Both tablets are packaged for a very affordable price ($129 and $199 for the WiFi-only version).
the A10 is a 10-inch tablet with a full HD (1080p) display. It is 8.9mm thin and weighs 509g, which is a bit more than the 450g of the iPad Air 2. In the back, there’s a speaker array (or a “soundbar” as Lenovo calls it) which contains multiple speaker. The design is nice and conveys a powerful audio capability. During a trade show like MWC, it’s too noisy to vouch for sound quality, but on paper this seems nice.
Lenovo says that the 7200 mAh battery should last about 10 hours on a single charge, which we assume has been tested by playing video for that amount of time. If true, that’s pretty good for a 10-inch tablet, and well in-line with the typical user expectations.
The A8 tablet has an 8-inch HD (720p) display, and these are more often used in portrait mode, probably for email, social media or news reading. It has 16GB of internal storage (expandable to 32GB via microSD) and uses the same 8.9mm-thick design, but is lighter at 360g, which is just a tad more than the iPad mini 2 (341g). Lenovo says that its battery can last 8hrs of uninterrupted work (which usually means watching a local video).
Both the A10 and A8 feature Dolby Atmos (with headphones), but the A8 has the distinctive ability to support dual-SIM. also important: the A8 tablet runs a “pure” version of Google’s Android 5.x Lollipop, which marks a turn, since Lenovo usually has its own Android Skin. Maybe Motorola is rubbing off on Lenovo in this post-acquisition era.
