Acer Iconia Tab P11 Review – Big Budget Android Tablet Tested

Tablets remain popular as they offer a large display for gaming or content consumption in a svelte form factor that’s larger than the typical size of a smartphone display which comes in handy for gaming, reading and general web browsing.

Acer is back in the tablet game and they’ve just rolled out a budget offering in Malaysia that’s just slightly north of RM1,000 in their Iconia tablet series dubbed the Tab P11. After taking it around for a spin in the past week, here’s our Acer Iconia Tab P11 review where we share our findings after putting it through its paces.

 Acer Iconia Tab P11 review – Build and Design

There’s still a place for affordable tablets in the market for casual users which is a role that the Acer Iconia Tab P11 aims to fulfil with its blend of specifications and features. Out of the box, our Acer Iconia Tab P11 review sample comes with a smattering of kit to get you started that include a USB cable, a 20W charger, the usual warranty paperwork, a ruggedised tablet case that doubles as a kickstand and the tablet itself wrapped in a plastic sleeve. 

The casing is of note and is form fitted to the exact dimensions of the tablet with heavy rubber bumpers all around and a flip-around cover that can fold up origami-style into a kickstand for landscape-style use.

The rear of our Acer Iconia Tab P11 review unit is done up in aluminium which lends it a rather premium feel. The entire swath of the backplate is otherwise a matte gunmetal grey with the notable inclusion of a single rear 13MP camera protected by a raised, rounded camera housing. The finish is relatively fingerprint resistant which bodes well for heavy users. 

Up top, the tablet has a power button and volume rockers while the base of the tablet is otherwise unremarkable. The left and right sides come with grilles for the quad speaker setup with two speakers per side. 

The right side has an additional USB-C port for charging duties along with a microSD card tray to augment the onboard storage. There is also a 3.5mm audio jack which makes this one of the few tablets in the market with a headphone jack though it has a rather unusual orientation as it is placed on the extreme right side of the tablet.

Up front, our Acer Iconia Tab P11 review sample has an 11-inch IPS LCD with WUXGA (1,200 x 1,920 pixels) resolution, a peak 300 nits brightness as well as a quoted 90Hz refresh rate though it is flanked by fairly thick bezels on all sides. Up top, you get a lone 5MP selfie camera for video calls along with a tiny coloured LED that shows if the tablet is charging. Overall build quality is sturdy and the provision of the ruggedised case cum kickstand along with a bundled charger does add to its value proposition.

Overall build quality is fairly sturdy as budget tablets go with its sleek looking metal chassis though it lacks any dust or water resistance so some care needs to be taken lest it get caught in the rain.

Acer Iconia Tab P11 review – Performance and Benchmarks

Under the hood, the Acer Iconia Tab P11 has specifications that put it squarely as an entry-level tablet with a MediaTek Helio G99 2.2GHz octacore processor running the show based on a 6nm process paired with 8GB LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB of onboard storage expandable via a microSD card slot that supports cards up to 512GB in size. Connectivity is primarily via WiFi and Bluetooth so you’ll need to tether this to your phone or find a hotspot to use this outside of your home or office.

Interestingly, our Acer Iconia Tab P11 review unit runs a relatively clean version of the latest Android 14 with minimal brand-customised overlays which will likely endear it to stock Android fans. 

There’s still a smattering of bloatware which consists of a number of preinstalled casual games including Candy Crush though they can be deleted without consequence. Seeing as this runs mostly stock Android, the Iconia Tab P11 doesn’t have any virtual RAM capabilities though it does have the Duraspeed feature that prioritises resources for the active app being used and restricts activity for apps in the background. 

 

This hardware setup optimises the tab primarily for light gaming, reading emails and enjoying ocontent on the go such as going through your Netflix backlog or YouTube. There’s also split screen multitasking available with the ability to run two different apps simultaneously onscreen though not all apps are compatible when run in this fashion. Here’s how the tablet stacks up on paper:

 

Price	RM1,099
Display	11-inch WUXGA IPS LCD 1,9200 x 1,200 pixels, 16:10 aspect ratio, 90Hz refresh rate
Processor	MediaTek Helio G99 MT8781 2.2GHz
OS	Android 14
Cameras	13MP w/ autofocus [rear] / 5MP [front]
Memory	8GB LPDDR4 RAM / 128GB +microSD card
Battery	8,000mAh battery w/ 20W USB PD 2.0
Size/Weight	265.2 x 169.8 x 8.1mm / 550g

When subjected to synthetic benchmarks, our Acer Iconia Tab P11 review unit scored the following:

Steel Nomad Light	127
Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	126
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	340
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	331
Geekbench 6 Single core	712
Geekbench 6 Multi core	1,837
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	1,294
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	1,273
PCMark Work 3.0	9,948

In terms of benchmarks, the Acer Iconia Tab P11 and its MediaTek Helio G99 processor performed within expectations for a budget tablet. In the 3D Mark Steel Nomad Light stress test, it had enjoyed 98.5% stability with temperatures capped at 36°C. 

Under actual usage conditions, the tablet acquitted itself in a competent fashion and it as able to comfortably handle a dozen open Chrome tabs. It was also able to smoothly handle splitscreen multitasking and was able to tackle running YouTube and the Chrome browser simultaneously onscreen. The tablet was also able to handle a variety of games on default medium settings like Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG.

The 11-inch display does the job with its relatively large size and vibrant hues making watching the Mandalorian a pleasant affair though it still isn’t bright enough for outdoors use. Unfortunately, the display is not colour calibrated which means that it may not be ideal for content creators nor does it have any eyesafe certification like the typical ones issued by TUV Rheinland on hand for the display. 

Even so, it’s still pleasant enough to view in dim light conditions without significant eye fatigue and I was able to continue reading an ebook on it in bed in dim light on several occasions without noticeable flickering or eyestrain. The integrated quad speakers do a decent job, offering sufficiently loud volume that’s loud enough for a quiet room though the integrated 3.5mm audio jack means that you are able to enjoy it on wired headphones which makes it all the more useful in public spaces.

Bearing in mind its size and provided accessories , our Acer Iconia Tab P11 review sample was compact and light enough for all day carry in a backpack and proved to be an effective way for doing some casual web browsing and movie watching on the go when needing a larger display. 

The lack of a bundled keyboard means that it’s not ideally suited for productivity tasks out of the box but users can simply get a third party keyboard and pair it up via Bluetooth to resolve that conundrum nicely. I simply toted around a Logitech Keys MX Mini with the tablet and still managed to get work done on Google Docs.

The results from both its front and rear cameras were underwhelming at best for both the front and rear cameras with soft, noisy images unless you enjoy bright lighting or daytime conditions. Still, the front camera is serviceable for a quick call on MS Teams or Zoom while the rear camera is sufficient for casual shots or for taking a snap of documents for work.

In terms of endurance, the tablet relies on a 8,000mAh battery that is quoted to offer up to 13 hours of usage. Under general usage scenarios, it’s able to comfortably be used for a day and a half with a combination of web browsing, light gaming and video with WiFi on and 60% screen brightness. Charging it is a somewhat slow affair though and the 20W charger bundled with the tablet takes close to four hours to fully charge from dead zero.

Should you buy the Acer Iconia Tab P11?

The Acer Iconia Tab P11 tablet is a reasonably priced budget tablet with a fair blend of performance and endurance for what you pay for that is ideally suited for casual use, web browsing and watching movies on the go.

The provision of the free case that doubles as a kickstand along with a full array of accessories including a charger adds quite a bit to its value proposition though you’ll need to source your own wireless keyboard if you’re aiming to use it for more serious productivity related tasks.

Acer Iconia Tab P11 review unit courtesy of Acer Malaysia. To purchase please visit https://store.acer.com/en-my/iconia-tab-p11-11-85j4