Why I recommend this Lenovo tablet over competing models that cost twice the price

ZDNET's key takeaways

• The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 is available now for $549.
• It features a gorgeous display, dual USB-C ports, and excellent performance with the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip.
• If you're looking for a big-screen tablet with a stylus, you'll likely find the eight-inch screen too small.

The Legion Tab Gen 3 joins Lenovo's gaming lineup as a slim and light eight-inch Android tablet with a brilliant 2.5K, 165Hz display, and 12GB of RAM. These specs, combined with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and a handful of intelligent design elements make it a versatile and premium gaming tablet, earning our Editors' Choice award. 

The first thing you notice upon picking up the Legion Tab is how small and minimalist it is, somewhat obscuring its gaming motivations. With its small size and ultra-thin bezels around the edges, it feels more like a thin sheet of black glass than a gaming device, but looking a little closer reveals some solid engineering. 

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The only two physical buttons on the device -- volume and power -- blend into the side of the tablet. Additionally, there are two USB-C ports: one on the side, and one on the bottom. Since you can flip the orientation of the display in any direction, this means you can plug in the device on any of the four sides.

This makes the Legion Tab an optimal travel device, since you can adjust your charging setup every time you're in a new place, while support for Wi-Fi 7 future-proofs its portability.  

Under the hood, the Legion Tab is equipped with the aforementioned Snapdragon 8 Gen 3  (3.30 GHz) processor, coincidentally matching the name of the tablet. For comparison, this is the same processor family found in competing tablets we love, like the OnePlus Pad 2.

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It also has 12GB of soldered LPDDR5X memory, 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage, and Android 14 OS. The bottom (or top) port can be used to connect to an external monitor via DisplayPort, which, when swapped into PC Mode, turns the tablet into a capable laptop. More on that in a minute. 

The tablet's display looks fantastic. Not everything needs to be an OLED to be considered premium, and the Legion Tab's 8.8-inch LTPS (low-temperature polycrystalline silicon) proves just that. With a 165Hz refresh rate, 500nit (900 for HDR) brightness, and 2560 x 1600 resolution, it's fully prepared for whatever gaming motivations you may have, delivering smooth, crisp visuals and vivid colors.

Android OS allows you to fine-tune the display to a granular level, selecting different color profiles and refresh rates for each app. This also makes it a solid device for watching movies, alongside its intended use case as a gaming tablet.

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Portability isn't the only reason why some folks might prefer a smaller tablet like the Legion Tab. It's also just big enough for the entire screen to be accessible with opposing thumbs if you're holding it with two hands. This makes it feel more like a gaming handheld, like the MSI Claw 8 AI+, with a sleek touchscreen instead of controls. 

I didn't get a chance to test out the Legion Tab with a third-party controller like the GameSir G8, but I imagine the Legion Tab's eight-inch display makes a fantastic gaming console at a practical size. Additionally, the dual USB-C ports mean you can play in either orientation. 

While gaming, you can access a handful of settings and stats with a left or right swipe, pulling out the Legion menu to swap between performance modes, see CPU usage, and screen record. 

You can also enable charge bypass on this menu, which is a great quality-of-life setting. This allows you to supply power directly to the tablet while plugged in, bypassing the battery entirely to keep it running cool, even during extended sessions.  

Also: Why I recommend this OnePlus tablet over iPads for streaming movies and casual browsing

The Legion Tab earns another point for its thoughtful design here, with Lenovo's ColdFront Vapor Chamber positioned over the processor near the center of the device -- away from where your hands are -- to further mitigate heat while you're holding it. 

The tablet comes with Black Desert Online preinstalled, so it was the first game I fired up, and it played nearly flawlessly with max settings. Popular mobile games like Flame of Valhalla, Hearthstone, and League of Legends: Wild Rift delivered zero lag or performance issues, and crisp, bright visuals, responsive UI navigation, and surprisingly good sound.

The Legion Tab comes with its own case, which is rather necessary given its very thin body. Luckily, it also doubles as a stand if you want to prop it up. The screen cover just as easily snaps off, leaving just the backing case. This is just as good because it's a little awkward to hold -- you have to fold the case all the way back while holding it. 

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Along with the case and magnetic cover, 68W USB-C wall charger and cable, I also appreciate that it comes with its own screen protector, going above and beyond to supply the essentials when it's becoming more common these days to make consumers buy these things separately. 

Connecting to an external monitor is also as easy as popping in a DisplayPort-compatible cable. PC mode with a keyboard and mouse works surprisingly well, as it's essentially a Chromebook Plus with this RAM/storage configuration and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. 

I've been bringing the Legion Tab into the office, where I have a docking station connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and it worked so well in this use case, it could even replace a laptop altogether for office visits or travel where a Chromebook suffices: accessing Gmail, working out of the cloud in Chrome, and standard videoconferencing. 

On that note, the main 13MP camera with flash is about what you'd find on a smartphone, while the front-facing 8MP full-frame is sufficient for video calls. 

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In terms of battery life, the Legion Tab is well-balanced for a gaming tablet. However, its small size works both for and against it, as the 6550mAh battery limits the amount of juice it can hold. That being said, it's efficient, lasting several days with intermittent use or several hours of sustained gaming at 165Hz. In my testing, I got around 12 hours of video playback at 60Hz and half brightness. 

ZDNET's buying advice

The Lenovo Legion Tab 3 succeeds at delivering a fantastic gaming experience thanks to its gorgeous display and impressive performance. It's sleek and premium, well-engineered, and packed with intelligent design choices. To top it off, its small size makes it a particularly practical travel device, and brings all of this for a competitive price of $549. 

Why the Lenovo Legion Tab 3 gets an Editors' Choice award

If you're looking for a thin and light tablet that's expressly portable, the Legion Tab is one of the best eight-inch tablets I've used, with a top-tier processor, Wi-Fi 7, and bypass charging. For all these reasons, it's earned our Editors' Choice award as a versatile device that's straight up fun to use.  

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