Leaving behind my iPad Pro for a week-long trip to Autodesk University 2025 felt reckless. Apple’s tablet has long been my creative safety net, the ideal go-to for a distracting doodle, its power and speed more than capable of most tasks, and, of course, Procreate.
But for a return flight from London to Nashville, I packed light and carried only Lenovo’s Idea Tab (the Pro model is reduced at the moment). A previous near miss of losing my iPad Pro made me anxious. And not that I hate the idea of losing my Lenovo (wait, is that an REM song?), at a fraction of the price, my bank account said, ‘take the Lenovo’. What I discovered is that for travel sketching and notes, I didn’t miss the iPad Pro at all… except when I really wanted that one app.
The Idea Tab is a compact, 11-inch device that leans more toward sketchbook than studio. At just over 600g, it slips easily into a backpack without weighing you down. The build is slim but sturdy, and while the glossy screen reflects every overhead light in an airport lounge, the issue fades once you’re immersed in drawing, particularly on a red eye. A matte, paperlike cover would limit (and I use Rock, Paper, Pencil on iPad Pro) the shine and add a little texture, but even bare, I quickly adapted.
My budget travel tablet
What surprised me most was the stylus. Lenovo’s pen doesn’t carry the premium reputation of the Apple Pencil, yet it’s precise enough to disappear as a tool. Pressure feels natural, tilt works reliably, and lines land where you want them. Within minutes, I found myself sketching into Heavy Paint – the passing clouds proved a fun, stylised distraction – mid-flight without thinking about the technology in my hand. Sure, it’s a little basic compared to Apple Pencil, and there were some latency quirks in ArtRage Vitae, but for loose sketches, it’s a neat little stylus.
Performance is, as expected, a notch below Apple’s flagship. The Idea Tab’s mid-range processor and Android OS keep pace with lightweight apps and note-taking, but push into heavy, layered artwork, and you’ll notice some hesitation. That said, I never once felt held back when doodling or capturing ideas. For the kind of creative work I do on the move, and I’m no pro artist, it was more than enough.
The real eye-opener, though, was battery life. Lenovo has packed in a huge cell, and in practice, it just keeps going. Across a week of travel, sketching on the plane, checking maps, and watching the odd video, I barely worried about charging. My iPad Pro, in comparison, demands more frequent top-ups. For travel, this difference alone shifts the experience from anxious to carefree. I was no longer rushing to a plug for a charge.
Lenovo room service
Better still, my flight home was delayed by 24 hours, and the Lenovo kept lighting up. Sitting in a two-star motel on the edge of Dallas, a pool with murky green water and nothing but rolling Fox News on TV, I was glad to have the distraction of Lenovo and Heavy Paint.
Setting up the tablet is painless. Log in with a Google account and everything syncs across. Gmail, Drive, Keep, Docs, they all feel comfortable and ready to go. Where I hit a wall was with creative software. I leaned on Heavy Paint and ArtRage Vitae for most of my sketches, and while they have their charms and strengths, neither is Procreate. (Read our Procreate tutorial hub for inspiration.) Nothing on Android truly is like Procreate. That was the single point where I felt the loss of Apple’s ecosystem: Procreate has become the creative shorthand for digital sketching, and its absence is keenly felt.
Yet, for all that, the Idea Tab gave me a freedom I didn’t expect. It became a lightweight digital sketchbook, always ready, never begging for power, and surprisingly enjoyable to use. On this trip at least, I didn’t miss the iPad Pro’s brute force or its larger, squarer screen (the Lenovo is proportionally tall and narrow). I only missed Procreate, and that says a lot about how well Lenovo’s little tablet carried me through.
The Lenovo Idea Tab won’t replace my iPad Pro, but as a travel companion for notes, doodles, and sketches, it’s far better than you’d think. Light, long-lasting, and easy to live with, it proved a worthy companion on my travels.
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