One week with the best small Android tablet you can buy, and I’m sold

After a few months of pestering, Lenovo finally sent over their small-yet-mighty Legion Tab Gen 3 about a week ago. We swiftly got the cameras fired up and did an unboxing with it because I was so excited to see what life with a small and powerful tablet would be like.

As a somewhat anti-tablet person, the idea of having a flagship-level device in an 8.8-inch form factor sounded interesting. Alongside the fact that I’m currently testing the smaller Pixel 9a, it was the perfect time to see if the phone/tablet setup as an everyday carry actually makes sense when the tablet is smaller but still incredibly capable. And, so far, it has been pretty amazing.

Some frustrations

Now, that’s not to say things are perfect. A few times I’ve forgotten to snag the Legion Tab from my desk or, on a day like today, forgotten to grab it from the car when I got to the office. I haven’t carried anything besides my phone in my pocket and my backpack (with a Chromebook or two inside) on my back for many, many years, so I expected this to happen a few times along the way.

My main aggravation with this tablet is the UI skin Lenovo employs. It’s just not good. It’s close enough to stock Android 14, yet missing a lot of the stuff that makes Android great from a UI and fluidity standpoint on something like the Pixel Tablet. At this point, nothing in the Android world is quite as fun as the Pixel UI, but Lenovo could do better than this. Notifications look odd with strange spacing between the message and the logo/avatar, the lock screen is incredibly limited, and the homescreen layout is a super-lame 4×5 or 4×6, so getting folders or widgets positioned and resized not to look goofy is tough.

So many upsides

But those are small gripes, really. After all, this isn’t my phone that I’m going to be using all day every day. It’s a tablet and it’s a secondary screen. Once my head got into that space, I’ve really (REALLY) enjoyed having the Legion Tab 3 around.

For instance, instead of continually trying to mirror my phone’s home screen layout on this tablet, I just got rid of most of the widgets I use for glanceable info throughout the day and minimized things to a clock, weather, and enlarged folders for quick app access to the things I do most on this device: watch video, play games, and read.

After making that change, turning off lift-to-wake (again, this isn’t the device I need glanceable info from), and using this thing for what I like about it, I’ve really come around to carrying a second device with me most places.

Mainly, though, I love this tablet as a companion device that I can use to compliment other things I’m doing. The other day, I had the Cubs game streaming on the couch next to me while playing Mario Kart 8 with my son. The display is big enough to see the action and the speakers are just amazing on this tablet. I could keep an eye on the game between races and not feel the need to get out a Chromebook or swap inputs on the TV.

And then there’s the gaming aspect. It’s a beast, and it’s the perfect size for anything you want to play. Many games get a bit strange on 10+ inch screens, but this 8.8-inch display and its silky-smooth 165Hz refresh rate is perfect. You can easily see more stuff, but the controls are realistic and in-reach, too. From PUBG Mobile to Fortnite to Golden Tee, Mobile games are an absolute blast with the Legion Tab 3, and I’ve been playing way more often with it around.

And while browsing the web and perusing Gmail are also both nice on this display, my other favorite thing about it is reading books. It’s just a great size for one-handed reading and it feels more book-like than a large smartphone. Sure, I’ve read countless books on smartphone screens, but I still love reading on something a bit closer to a real book in size.

I need a little bit more time to put together a full review, but I can tell you that I really do enjoy this smaller tablet experience very much. If you’re looking for a desktop replacement or something to work from, I don’t know that this is your device. But if you want a content consumption monster, I don’t know many that get it done better than this Legion Tab Gen 3. When used for the right stuff, it just gets a lot right at a really solid (often discounted) price.