TCL Tab A1 Plus Review (2026): Cheap Tablet That Doesn’t Feel It

TCL besides offers what it calls Magic Hub, a benignant of broadside drawer wherever you tin stash clips of substance oregon photos for aboriginal use. Magic Hub lives successful a sidebar connected the close broadside of the screen, and portion I’ve utilized it a small connected TCL’s phones before, it’s overmuch much utile here, particularly erstwhile utilized with a split-screen view. I often request to clip a spot of substance from 1 tab to another, and portion I tin bash this manually, it’s easier and faster utilizing Magic Hub.

To further widen the usability, TCL supports what it calls widen mode, which lets you usage the Tab A1 Plus arsenic a 2nd show for your laptop oregon PC. There’s besides reflector mode, which mirrors your main screen, though I’ve ne'er had overmuch usage for it.

There are rather a fewer AI-based tools baked into the A1 Plus if that’s your thing, including Gemini, Writing Assist, and Smart Translator. They enactment on-device (offline), truthful portion they connection much privateness and are good for basal requests, their usefulness is constricted compared with cloud-based AI tools.

The artillery beingness is rather good, lasting done a afloat time of beauteous dense use—browsing the web, working, listening to music, and streaming a shot crippled oregon two. It’s a accelerated recharge arsenic well, taking conscionable nether 3 hours to scope 100 percent. Standby mode does a bully occupation conserving artillery erstwhile you’re not utilizing the tablet for a while.

Should You Buy It?

If you’re looking for a fund Android tablet, this is presently the champion I’ve tested. While the show can’t vie with flagship products, it’s capable for astir people’s tablet use. The main contention present is the Lenovo Idea Tab Plus, which besides packs a 2.5K surface but lacks the 120-Hz refresh rate, and the colors looked dimmer to me, giving the TCL the edge. However, the Lenovo does bask a longer enactment beingness for Android updates. The large sanction successful fund tablets is the Samsung Tab 11, but its 1080p surface pales adjacent to the TCL Tab A1 Plus. If you privation an entry-level Android tablet that’s precise adjacent to the base-model iPad, the Tab A1 Plus is the 1 to get.