Lenovo Tab One 8.7" 2025, MediaTek Helio G85, 4GB, 64GB, Luna Grey

The Lenovo Tab One is an 8.7-inch Android tablet that's fine for streaming and reading if you get it on sale. The slow eMMC storage and weak CPU make it a poor choice for multitasking or work. It's best treated as a kid's device or a portable video player with a handy included case.

The MediaTek Helio G85 and 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM handle lightweight tasks okay, but don't expect snappy app switching. In our testing, the CPU lands in the absolute bottom tier, the 1st percentile, which means even basic navigation can stutter when apps update in the background. The GPU, oddly enough, scores in the 99th percentile for this category. That sounds impressive until you realize it's because most tablets in this class have even weaker graphics. It'll run simple 2D games and stream video smoothly, but don't mistake that for a gaming tablet.

The 64GB of eMMC storage is a real bottleneck. It's slow to load apps and write data, sitting in the 30th percentile. You can expand it with a microSD card, which helps for storing movies offline, but the base speed remains sluggish. The 5100mAh battery is solidly average, landing in the 61st percentile. You'll get through a day of intermittent use, and Lenovo's claim of 12.5 hours of YouTube streaming seems plausible if you keep the brightness in check.

Stacked against the Apple iPad 10th Generation, the Lenovo Tab One feels like a toy. The iPad's screen is sharper, the A14 Bionic chip is in a different universe performance-wise, and the app ecosystem is far more polished. The Tab One's only real advantage is the included case and a lower entry price when on sale. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE also demolishes it with a better display, faster storage, and an S Pen for note-taking.

Even against other budget Android tablets like the UMIDIGI Active T1, the Lenovo struggles. The Active T1 offers a rugged build and a bigger battery for outdoor use. The Xiaomi Pad 7, while pricier, delivers a 144Hz display and a much faster processor. The Tab One's niche is being cheap and small, and it only wins if those are your only two criteria.

Value is tricky here because the price swings from $129 to $218. At the low end, getting a tablet with a case and decent speakers for a little over a hundred bucks isn't a bad deal for a dedicated streaming device. But once you creep toward $200, you're in the same neighborhood as the Apple iPad 10th Generation or a Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE, both of which run circles around the Tab One in screen quality, performance, and app support. If you can snag this on a deep discount, it's a fair buy. At full price, you're getting fleeced.

The Lenovo Tab One is an 8.7-inch Android tablet that's clearly built for casual media consumption and not much else. It's the kind of device you grab for a kid's road trip or to watch YouTube in bed, especially since it comes with a folio case right in the box. With 4GB of RAM, 64GB of slow eMMC storage, and a MediaTek Helio G85 processor, the specs are firmly in budget territory. You'll find it floating around between $129 and $218 depending on the sale, which puts it up against some surprisingly capable competition.

Lenovo pitches this as an all-day entertainment machine, and for basic streaming, it mostly delivers. The 480-nit LCD screen is bright enough for indoor use, and the dual speakers with Dolby Atmos tuning are a nice touch at this price. But the 1340x800 resolution on an 8.7-inch panel looks soft, and the 60Hz refresh rate is just the bare minimum. If you've used a sharper display, you'll notice the pixels.

Where things get rough is any attempt at real work. Our database shows productivity performance is the tablet's weakest area by a mile, and the 1st percentile CPU score backs that up. This thing chugs if you try to multitask or run anything beyond a single app. It's a consumption-only device, and that's fine as long as you know that going in.

Skip the Lenovo Tab One if you need a tablet for work, school, or any kind of multitasking. The productivity performance is the worst we've seen, and the slow storage will drive you nuts if you're trying to switch between a document and a browser. Artists and note-takers should also look away, since there's no stylus support and the screen is too low-res for detailed work. If you want a tablet for creative apps or split-screen multitasking, grab an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE instead.

You should buy the Lenovo Tab One if you need a cheap, small screen for a kid or as a dedicated e-reader and video streamer, and you find it for under $130. The included case and decent speakers make it a solid little media slab for the money. But if you plan to do any work, play demanding games, or use more than one app at a time, look elsewhere. The slow storage and weak CPU will frustrate you within a week.

For most people, saving up a bit more for an iPad or a Galaxy Tab is the smarter move. The Tab One is a single-purpose device, and it does that one thing adequately. Just don't ask it to do anything else.