First unveiled back at CES 2019, the Lenovo Smart Tab P10 is a full-fledged 10-inch Android tablet that doubles as an Alexa smart display when docked. It’s a relatively affordable device that offers the best of both worlds and it begs the question: why buy a stand-alone smart display when you can opt for a full-featured Android tablet, Alexa smart display, and Bluetooth speaker altogether – for nearly the same price as a stand-alone smart display?
Operating as a stand-alone Android tablet, the Lenovo Smart Tab P10 is a capable mid-range tablet with solid specs that are complemented by a premium dual-glass design. The 10.1” FHD display on the tablet is bright with vivid colors. Watching YouTube and Netflix videos on it both look great. The dual-glass design is solid, very slim, and well crafted, but unfortunately, it’s also extremely slippery to grip. To that effect, while its glass backside is very pretty, the tablet almost slipped out of my hands several times.
The tablet also rocks a responsive fingerprint sensor. Under the hood, the Smart Tab M10 is powered by a Snapdragon 450. Performance is solid and overall it’s a capable Android tablet, but it did occasionally freeze up on us.
The included dock is very sturdy and it serves as a great tablet stand. Inside of the dock are two 3-watt Dolby Atmos powered speakers. The audio coming from the dock’s speakers is solid but not incredible. To that effect, music sounds clear without much distortion, but the bass is weak and it’s not a replacement for a higher end portable Bluetooth speaker. That said, the audio it produces is a lot more powerful than what you get from a typical tablet speaker, so it’s still very nice to have.
Out of the box, the Smart Tab M10 comes running a nearly pure version of Android Oreo. It also comes preloaded with non-standard apps like Alexa, Netflix, Skype, an FM Radio, Dolby Atmos, and Outlook. In addition, the tablet supports Productivity Mode which emulates a Windows-like Desktop experience and can be very useful you plan on using the tablet for office work.
We’re most impressed with the fact that the P10 supports dedicated user profiles which run alongside a Kids Mode that is supported by KIDOZ parental control software. This allows the tablet to be that much more versatile by also serving as a family-friendly tablet that can be shared with everyone in your home – even guests.
But as much as the software on the Smart Tab P10 is well rounded, our biggest gripe with the Smart Tab P10 comes from the Alexa side. To start, the initial set up involving Alexa is an extremely convoluted and non-straightforward process which involves multiple apps and popups. Once the initial arduous set is over, it’s pretty smooth sailing from there except for the fact that the Alexa Show Mode software is buggy. We’re really hoping that Lenovo and/or Amazon releases software updates to help remedy this, because outside of the flaky software, the hardware experience is solid. With that said, we’ve already seen one software update become available for the P10.
Smart Tab P10 vs Fire 10
The Smart Tab P10’s most direct competitor is Amazon’s Show Mode Charging Dock for Fire HD which costs about $205 with the Fire 10 tablet included. But the Fire 10 tablet is not nearly as versatile and capable as the Lenovo Smart Tab P10, and its dock doesn’t offer the robust speaker system that the Smart Tab P10’s dock offers. The Lenovo Smart Tab P10 is clearly the winner between the two.
Bottom line
Although it’s not perfect, the fact that the Lenovo Smart Tab P10 doubles as an Alexa smart display is the icing on the cake. After all, why buy a smart display when you can have a pretty swanky tablet and smart display all-in-one for nearly the same price? This is why the Lenovo Smart Tab P10 is really a no brainer if you’re looking to buy a Smart Display with Alexa.
Pricing for the Lenovo Smart Tab P10 starts at $299. That said, if you don’t need the premium dual-glass design or the fingerprint reader, or the 64GB of storage, and would rather save some money, you can go for the Lenovo Smart Tab M10 which drops the premium build and swaps out the 64GB of storage for the 32GB for $65 less than the P10.