Lenovo Idea Tab Pro: Large Tablet for Music
Black Friday sales... a good way to pick up some pieces of technology that we have been holding out on until these sales. Things that weren't urgent but would be nice if the right thing was going for the right price!
... and we sort of needed a second large tablet so that my wife and I could sight-read and churn through music selection quickly without printing lots of music that we wouldn't likely end up using! We have on A4 sized e-reader from Boox for this... but those are pretty expensive, and they don't go on sale!
So, when this Lenovo Tab Pro went on sale... I immediately jumped, as it was one of the options that we had been looking at for quite some time.... plus, a proper tablet has a bit more general use options and hand me down value for the kids when we are done with it.
Now, one of the big selling points for us for this tablet was the matte display... you can see already in this photo that the reflections are pretty muted on this sort of screen! Perfect for performing and reading indoors... which is exactly the use case for us!
There are pogo pins for attaching a keyboard cover... but we don't need that. This isn't supposed to be anything more than a swiping tablet with a bit of writing... but still, just in case this does take on additional duties!
Sigh... an upside down photo.... nevermind, this was only just to see the back layout. There is a camera on it... probably pretty basic, but it would only be used to scan pages of music anyway! Otherwise, it is pretty featureless... you don't see it, but there is a magnetic stripe area where the pen can attach itself as well!
An included charger, not particularly high wattage, but that doesn't matter, I have lots decent of 3rd party chargers scattered around the house, so this will likely go into a drawer somewhere until one of the kids needs an extra point.
And the bundled pen... always nice to have these bundled into the tablet purchase. USB-C charging, but apart from that... nothing spectacular, just a functional electronic pen!
Now, what did surprise me was that there was an additional microSD slot... perfect again for us, seeing as there is a LOT of music that we end up using, and that can start to hog the limited 256GB headroom that we have on this tablet! Especially when they are quite large colour scans of old facsimiles!
USB-C charging... nothing out of place for a 2025 tablet... and 4 decent speakers as well! The sound fine, not the best I've heard as they are a bit dimmer on the bass end, but more than clear enough for home use.
Hello! A nice clear and sharp screen... and walking through the usual Google account setup was a breeze... there was a bit of annoyance with it trying to install additional games and apps.. nothing dire, just lots of unchecking of boxes.
... and then uninstalling all the Lenovo things that got bundled in... but on the plus side, they WERE uninstallable! Which is more than you can say for some other manufacturers...
... and then a light install of the apps that we would need for this tablet in its specialised use case. Musescore, Dropbox, Spotify, and MusicSheets. Very light app footprint for this machine!
One little thing that the Boox tablet has over this one is the fact that the Boox is actually A4 sized... this Lenovo Pro has a 12.7 inch screen which is very close to the 13.3 for A4... but it is a slightly different height-width ratio... it is the same height as an A4 sheet, but slightly skinnier... which means that music is slightly up-down stretched (or left-right squashed)... no big deal, but it wasn't what I was expecting! Whoops... but again, it still is more than clear enough!
All done and ready to go! Looking forward to loading it up with lots of music for the archives to read through with my wife!
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Been using my Lenovo 10" tablet for five years. I love it. Every day I take it with me. Having a large screen that I can travel with that connects to wifi is so useful. The way technology has moved, I could not do my job without it.
Only recommendation is to use an app like Nova to replace the desktop. Lenovo is a little better than Samsung, by not forcing a bunch of bloatware apps in your frequently used activities. Still, if you don't like the forced google assistant on the left swipe side of the desktop, it can can be hidden with Nova.
Mostly I use my duckduckgo browser, YouTube, and google apps (spreadsheet, email, photos). Every once in a while google gets hung up, or YouTube can even cause the tablet to restart! Usually a weekly restart will help the device, making it operate fast, if it ever seems laggy. It also has excellent sound with headphones and Bluetooth earbuds.
One trick I use on my phone and tablet, is to have my students connect their Bluetooth earbuds, and I always wear the left, and they get the right, so we can practice (ballroom dancing!) listening to the same music or hear a video in a shared room situation.
Mine doesn't have a pressure sensitive screen and pen (I really wanted this actually when I was last shopping for a tablet), and it doesn't output a mirror screen to other devices w/o lag. Yours probably has lots of new bells and whistles. They might even allow multiple pairs of Bluetooth earbuds on newer devices.
I have Nova Launcher on my phones and I LOVE IT!, but the developer just sold it recently... I'm still using it, but am starting to look for an alternative before the company that he sold it to "improves" it!
I'm not sure if I'll replace the launcher on this yet... it is such a special use tablet for us that I probably am not going to faff around too much with!
Hmmm, interesting trick for the dancing! I'm not sure how good the pen is, it does seem to be pressure sensitive, good enough for annotations in parts but I suspect that artists would want something better!
que fina se ve, muchas felicidades por tu nueva adquisición!
How fine it looks, congratulations on your new acquisition!
Thanks, it is looking to be a very useful part of our music making!
Looks like a cool gadget. I have been a fan of Lenovo for a while now. Even before they shaved them off from IBM.
I never had Lenovo laptops... everyone raved about them, but I've always wanted gaming stuff! But they do make gaming machines now...
I have a Lenovo gaming laptop in my office. It's pretty nice, though the battery is failing I think.
I think this new device is excellent. I'm particularly impressed by the optical pen, which would be great if someone wanted to use the tablet for drawing. I think it's a real bonus feature. Congratulations on your purchase, it's great!
Thanks! I'm not sure that the pen would be a good thing for real visual artists, it is good for music annotations... but I think artists would want something better!
What kind of tip does the pen use? Or is it just magnetic contact? Is it good for illustration apps?
Not sure what sort of tip... it is pretty rudimentary I think, in that it is good for writing and making notes in music... but I think visual artists would want something better!
Rotate it with the editing tools?
It doesn't letterbox? o_O
Can you tell I don't have much recent experience with Android and definitely not in this usecase XD
I would have put PMOS on it x_x
Have fun with the new toy :D
Yeah yeah... I had rotated a few already, but this one got overlooked... and when it got uploaded... pfff...
It can letterbox, but I prefer the stretching and the slightly larger reading area to the smaller but ratio correct version! Or the Boox, which is larger AND ratio-correct!
PMOS, interesting... I didn't know that one, I might have some things for that to load onto! I used to use a different community developed Android OS.
Bahahahhaaaa I see it was a case of THERE'S ALWAYS ONE. THAT ONE.
Fair enough, I guess bigger is probably easier to read given some of the insanity that youngest has been showing me (the latest one was one of the Paganini Caprices, to me it looked like someone spilt ink on their music sheet and then drew a bunch of lines on it).
I hope you write about it if you do find some things to load it onto :D
Good purchase, friend, and thanks for the recommendation. A tablet like this could be great for when I have to spend long hours at university, haha.