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The Lenovo Tab M8 is a cheap Android tablet with an 8 inch IPS LCD display, support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth and a starting price that tends to hover between $90 and $130. Basically it’s Lenovo’s answer to the Amazon Fire HD 8, except Lenovo’s tablet ships with stock Android software and support for the Google Play Store and some models of Lenovo’s tablet are also available with 4G LTE.
Lenovo’s most recent model is the Tab M8 Gen 3, but now it looks like there’s a new 4th-gen Lenovo Tab M8 on the way.
An unannounced “portable tablet computer” from Lenovo showed up at the FCC website this week, with the model number TB300XU. According to a Google support page, that makes this tablet the Lenovo Tab M8 (4th-gen).
FCC documents indicate that the tablet will support WiFi 5, Bluetooth LE, and 4G LTE connectivity.
December 7, 2022 Update: Lenovo has launched the tablet in Japan, and added product specifications to its website for models that will be available in other countries as well. For the most part… it’s not much better than the 3rd-gen tablet, and in some respects it might be more of a downgrade than an upgrade.Â
Unfortunately I haven’t found much additional information about the tablet yet, aside from the fact that Lenovo will likely offer at least few different memory and storage configurations including:
- 2GB/32GB
- 3GB/32GB
- 4GB/64GB
There’s no word on the display, processor, or other specs, but here are some details for the previous-gen Lenovo Tab M8 (3rd-gen):
- 8 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS LCD 350 nit display
- MediaTek Helio P22T processor (4 x Cortex-A53 cores @ 2.3 GHz, 4 x Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.8 GHz)
- 2GB LPDDR4X memory
- 32GB eMCP storage
- Android 11 software
- WiFi 5
- Bluetooth 5.0
- 5MP rear camera (auto-focus)
- 2MP front camera (fixed focus)
- USB 2.0 Type-C port
- 3.5mm headset jack
- 199 x 122 x 8mm
- 305 grams
When Lenovo launched the Tab M8 (3rd-gen) tablet, it had the same display as the 2nd-gen model as well as the same amount of storage and memory, although it did move from LPDDR3 memory to LPDDR4X and from Android 9 to Android 11. The biggest differences is that the second-gen tablet had a 2 GHz MediaTek Helio A22 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor.
So I’d expect the 4th-gen model to receive a modest spec bump, but I’d be surprised if the company introduces any major changes with the new model.
My advice: don’t buy it. Lenovo consistently emphasizes lower prices over quality and functionality. I had their tab 8 gen 2 fhd with a mediatech p22a junk processor. Then gen 3 they upgraded the processor to a p22t but took away the hd display. Now gen 4 goes back to the same lowly p22a awful processor with weak display. Don’t support them.
My advice: don’t buy it. Lenovo consistently emphasizes lower prices over quality and functionality. I had their tab 8 gen 2 fhd with a mediatech p22a junk processor. Then gen 3 they upgraded the processor to a p22t but took away the hd display. Now gen 4 goes back to the same junk p22a awful processor with junk display. Don’t support them.
These aren’t tablets to get excited about but they have their place. Only the M8 gen 3 only just became available in the USA, maybe a year after it was announced? Even their web site lists it as a “new arrival.” So count on this being even older/more underwhelming when/if it finally makes it to those shores.
Whenever I see a “new” gadget with specs like these, it makes me think they have some leftover spare parts from “previous seasons”, which need to be sold quickly, so they stitch together a frankenstein-device for this purpose. Seriously, it’s an abomination to sell any resolution lower than FullHD, or less than 64 GB of storage in this day and age.
See also:
Blackview Tab 6
Alldocube Smile 1
Headwolf Fpad 1
They all seem alike. All 8″, they even have +1 GB of RAM compared to this tab, and Fpad has whopping 64 GB of storage. 😀
I miss those times when 8″ tablets were actually good.
I personally think a 1280 x 800 8 inch screen is unacceptable in 2022, even for a budget tablet. I’ve still got my Huawei Mediapad m3 with an 8.4 inch 2560 x 1600 screen and I purchased that one in 2016, so it’s sad that not only are 8 inch tablets hard to come by, but most are 1280 x 800 and only a few are 1920 x 1080. It’s an abandoned tablet segment size that is too close to the size of a modern smart phone, so there’s no incentive for any manufacturers to release a premium 8 inch tablet. Shame, because I still find benefit in an 8 inch size tablet with a high end screen.
They’re pretty good tablets. I have the 2020 M8 FHD (the 1920×1200 version instead of the 1280×800 one). It has smaller bezels and is lighter than the Fire HD 8 Plus, but doesn’t seem to be as powerful. I’ll be curious to see what processor they use in the new version.
I will say they are very pleasant to use. They basically have stock Android installed–very little bloatware or customization compared to the Samsung tablets I’ve seen.
They are going to use the same junk media TEC Helio p22a which can’t even run Gmail without freezing. The m8 3td gen had a better processor.