Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5: First 20 Things To Do

Quick summary: The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 is an 8.8-inch gaming tablet with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 3K LCD and a 9,000mAh battery. Here are the first things I set up when I got it, in the order I did them.

Make it look the way you want

1. Wallpaper: press and hold an empty spot on the home screen and go to Wallpapers and themes. Pick a curated wallpaper, or use a photo from your local album.
2. Themes: in the same menu, tap a theme and hit Apply. It restyles the whole tablet.
3. Icon shape: switch icons between square, circle or default, and drag the sliders to fine-tune them.
4. Charging animation: you can also change what the animation looks like while the tablet charges.
5. System theme colors and fonts: change the system accent color, turn monochrome on or off, and choose whether the color also applies to home screen icons. You can change the font here too.

Home screen and quick settings

6. Entertainment space: press and hold the home screen, open Home settings, and turn off Swipe to access entertainment space if you don’t want that screen to the right of your home screen.
7. Layout style: coming from an iPhone or iPad? Pick normal style so you just see your apps. I also turn on adding new apps to the home screen automatically, adjust icon size, and turn on autofill empty areas so icons line up when you remove one.
8. Quick settings tiles: swipe down from the top and edit the tiles. Drag the ones you use (like screen record or VPN) to the top and drag the ones you don’t want down to hide them.

Wi-Fi, lighting and display

9. Stop the public Wi-Fi nag: in Wi-Fi’s Advanced settings, turn off Notify for public networks.
10. Turn Wi-Fi on automatically near high-quality saved networks, like your home.
11. Lighting effect: the light on the back reacts to music, games, charging and notifications. It uses battery, so turn it off or keep only notifications on (handy when it’s face down). Keep auto shut down on low battery on.
12. Dark mode: pick light, dark, or automatic switching at sunset and sunrise. I keep adaptive brightness on.
13. Screen color mode: I use Vibrant for punchier colors.
14. Refresh rate: set it to Extreme for the smoothest motion. It uses more battery. If you use a stylus, turn on the global pen option so the pen works at up to 120Hz.
15. Screen timeout: I set it to 2 minutes.
16. Lock screen: turn on waking the screen for notifications, and change the clock style and color if you like.

Sound, notifications and battery

17. Dolby Atmos: in Sound and vibration, make sure Dolby Atmos is on and set it to Dynamic. The haptics are really nice on this tablet, so I left them on, but I turn off the other system sounds.
18. Notification history and battery percentage: turn on Notification history so you can see notifications you swiped away, and turn on the battery percentage in the status bar. You can hide status bar icons you don’t care about.

Security, gestures and camera

19. Face unlock: in Biometrics, set up face unlock and turn on direct unlock so it unlocks as soon as the screen lights up. Review wireless emergency alerts, too: I keep severe and extreme alerts on and turn off test alerts. In Battery, you can check battery health and turn on charging protection if you plan to keep it a long time.
20. Gestures and camera: in General settings, choose gestures or three-button navigation. I keep the navigation bar visible because Circle to Search needs it. Turn on the quick gestures (like double tap with three fingers to split the screen) and choose what holding the power button does. Last, open the camera and set the rear video to 4K. The front camera tops out at 1080p.

Verdict

This is honestly the best tablet I’ve used: great speakers, great speed, great software, a huge battery and super fast charging. If you want one, here’s my link:

• Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 at Lenovo