Meet Maggie, PCMag'sThe $369.99 TCL Nxtpaper 11 Plus is an Android tablet with a twist: a special matte screen with three selectable modes. It's also bundled with a stylus for sketching and note-taking, and a stand case for hands-free viewing. After testing the 11 Plus for two months, I love that its e-ink display mode easily tones down overstimulating saturation and harsh glare, and the matte coating reduces reflections when used outdoors. But its sluggish performance may be a deal-breaker for users who want to do more than just scribble and read. If you need more muscle, you'd be better off saving $20 and getting the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro ($349) or the 11th-generation Apple iPad ($349), our Editors’ Choice winners for budget-friendly tablets in this size class.
The 11 Plus has your typical rectangular tablet design with thick black bezels. I’m not complaining about the extra framing; I like having a place to rest my thumbs. It only comes in one all-black colorway: onyx.
The TCL slate measures 10.26 by 6.96 by 0.26 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.08 pounds. In comparison, its lower-cost Lenovo rival, the Idea Tab Plus (10.98 by 7.13 by 0.25 inches, 1.17 pounds), is taller, wider, and slimmer, while Lenovo's Idea Tab Pro is larger still (11.49 by 7.44 by 0.27 inches, 1.37 pounds). The 11th-generation iPad is shorter, wider, and thicker, but lighter (9.79 by 7.07 by 0.28 inches, 1.05 pounds).
My main gripe with the 11 Plus' design is its awkward balance. Although it's nearly identical in weight to the iPad, its larger 11.5-inch footprint spreads that weight over a wider area, making one-handed holding tiring.
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As for its build, the 11 Plus features an aluminum back casing and glass on the front, with a paper-like, anti-glare finish. The matte display feels different from your typical glossy screen. Sliding my finger across it feels almost like running it over a screen protector. The back panel features a funky circular camera module with one rear shooter.
Unfortunately, the TCL tablet lacks an IP rating, just like the Idea Tab Plus and 11th-gen iPad, neither of which offers certified dust or water resistance. You'll want to keep the 11 Plus away from pools, beaches, and spills.
Holding the 11 Plus in landscape orientation, you'll find the selfie camera on the top bezel, which facilitates face unlock. The tablet has no other biometric authentication options (e.g., fingerprint unlock), but you can use a PIN or password for tighter security. Also on the top bezel, on the far left, is the ambient light sensor, which measures the brightness of your surroundings and automatically adjusts the display accordingly.
On the top edge are the power key and volume rocker, paired with a handy screen-mode switcher on the right that lets you cycle through regular, color-paper, and ink-paper modes.
On the right side of the tablet, you'll find a USB-C port flanked by two speaker grilles. On the left is another set of speaker grilles. Unlike the Idea Tab Plus, there's no microSD card slot.
The 11 Plus has an 11.5-inch, 2,200-by-1,440-pixel, IPS LCD with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 550 nits.
Compare this with the Idea Tab Plus's larger 12.1-inch, 2,560-by-1,600-pixel display with a 90Hz refresh rate and 800-nit peak brightness. The iPad has the smallest display, packed with a resolution of 2,360 by 1,640 pixels. Plus, its screen is limited to just 60Hz and has the dimmest 500-nit panel.
Although the 11 Plus sits between its rivals in terms of brightness, its matte, anti-glare display still makes it easy to read in the bright outdoors.
Regular Use
You toggle the TCL tablet's three display modes with the top-edge button. The regular mode gives you the display at its best: Apps have their usual vivid logos, the default wallpaper is striking, and everything is at its brightest and most vibrant.
If you prefer something easier on the eyes, something less overstimulating, you can turn on color-paper or ink-paper modes; the former has a more muted effect while the latter goes full black-and-white.
Color paper mode is ideal for casual browsing, giving your eyes a break from punchy colors. Ink paper mode is best for reading, delivering a more paper-like viewing experience.
Reading
I loaded up The Firm by John Grisham via Google Books on the 11 Plus. It performs exactly as I expected. The text was crisp and easy to read, the matte display minimized distracting reflections, and the ink paper mode made reading comfortable.
The 11.5-inch display offers plenty of screen real estate. Because holding it one-handed can tire your wrist over time, the included stand case comes in handy for propping up the tablet on a flat surface for a hands-free reading experience.
Streaming
Despite how good it looks on the home screen, don’t expect rich colors and deep blacks when watching video on the sub-$400 11 Plus. After testing some YouTube videos and some of my favorite shows on Peacock, I didn’t find the colors particularly vibrant or the contrast especially strong, which is expected for a tablet at this price.
Even so, it's sharp and crisp enough, preserving plenty of fine detail, from an owl’s feathers in the snow to the scaly skin of a bright-green iguana. At a nearby park, I tested the 11 Plus on a bright afternoon, and I still found the tablet legible without having to fend off reflections and glare.
This set comes with a stylus called the T-Pen, which features 4,096 levels of sensitivity. Don't expect Apple Pencil Pro-level usability; it lacks hover features, haptic feedback, and squeeze controls. However, it does the job.
I tested the T-Pen by drawing one of my favorite cartoon characters, SpongeBob SquarePants, in the native Notes app.
For a budget stylus, it performed well, with responsive tracking and little noticeable lag. My only frustration is the TCL Notes app’s frustrating scribble-to-erase function, which kept deleting existing strokes whenever I drew over them with a scribbling motion. I couldn’t find a way to disable the feature in the T-Pen settings, so I’ve reached out to TCL for help and will update this review if I hear back.
The case has three slots for propping up the tablet at different viewing angles, and it doubles as a cover to protect it when you toss it into a travel bag.
The downside is its flimsy construction; the bottom section lacks the rigidity to hold its shape and gives way like a cheap folder.
The 11 Plus features the MediaTek Helio G100 processor, the same chip that powers the Idea Tab Plus. It only offers one configuration: 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
To see how the 11 Plus stacks up against the Idea Tab Plus and the iPad, I ran Geekbench 7 on the 11 Plus, and it delivered single- and multi-core scores of 661 and 1,715. That's a step below the scores the Idea Tab Plus spat out: 756 and 1,969, respectively. The iPad, meanwhile, left both Android slates in the dust with far higher scores of 2,479 (single-core) and 4,352 (multi-core).
As someone particularly attuned to performance differences after testing countless tablets, I noticed some sluggishness while navigating the 11 Plus. Opening something as simple as Settings occasionally triggered a brief microlag, while launching Spotify took a few seconds longer than I’d like. For the average person, these minor performance dips likely won’t be noticeable.
When I tested Genshin Impact, one of the most graphics-intensive mobile games, the 11 Plus struggled to keep up. I noticed that the tablet sacrificed a lot of graphical fidelity, resulting in lackluster textures and choppiness once in a blue moon. Reflecting my real-world experience, I also ran the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test, which yielded a disappointing score of 347 overall at just 2.08 frames per second (fps). This isn't far from the Idea Tab Plus' 341 at 2.04fps score, but trails the zippier iPad (2,599 at 15.6fps).
The 11 Plus packs an 8,000mAh battery and supports 45W fast charging with a compatible charger.
On the TCL tablet, I ran the PCMag battery rundown test, which consists of streaming a 1080p video over Wi-Fi with the screen at max brightness. It lasted 6 hours and 4 minutes on a single charge, which isn't far off from the Idea Tab Plus (6 hours and 19 minutes) and the iPad (6 hours and 43 minutes), but it nonetheless has the worst battery life of its peers.
Charging from 0%, the Idea Tab Plus reached 25% in 15 minutes and 41% in 30 minutes. It took the TCL tablet 1 hour and 25 minutes to fully charge. Compare that figure with the Idea Tab Plus, which took 1 hour and 15 minutes to reach 100%, and the iPad, which reached 100% in just under 2 hours.
The 11 Plus supports Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 5. Similar to the Idea Tab Plus and Pro, it doesn't offer cellular connectivity. The iPad, on the other hand, has a cellular option that supports sub-6GHz 5G and gigabit LTE. Plus, Apple's entry-level tablet bumps your wireless specs to Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6.
While connected to Wi-Fi 6 router in my office, the 11 Plus, held near the access point, reached maximum download and uploads speeds of 168Mbps and 133Mbps, respectively. Comparatively, I ran the same speed test on the M4 iPad Air in the same location; it delivered faster max speeds of 257Mbps (downloads) and 188Mbps (uploads). In the weakest coverage area, the 11 Plus reached maximum download and upload speeds of 21.5Mbps and 16.9Mbps, respectively. The iPad Air fared a lot better in pulling in signals, reaching maximum speeds of 72.9Mbps (downloads) and 33.3Mbps (uploads).
The 11 Plus has a set of quad speakers, with two grilles flanking the tablet on both sides. I fired up The Knife's "Silent Shout," PCMag's test track, on the TCL tablet. At max volume, it gets impressively loud, filling my entire office with sound.
The audio quality gives listeners the impression that the song is being played inside a box without a lid. It sounds compressed and slightly tinny. You might want to pair this tablet with one of our best headphones for a better listening experience.
The 11 Plus is equipped with two 8MP cameras, one on the rear and one on the front. They're pretty bad—even for a midrange tablet.
If you're ever outside during a sunny day with the 11 Plus, and you want to take a selfie, don't bother. I tried it myself, and suffered from overexposure so severe that I looked like a ghost.
Indoor camera performance is better, though I'd stop short of praising it. The color reproduction is decent, but the crisp, clear quality you'd hope for these days is lacking.
Flipping to the rear camera, I went back outside and captured even better photos. The colors in the shot of apples are more subdued than I'd like, and as one would expect from a sub-$400 tablet, the quality is a bit soft.
The 11 Plus captured its best shot when I took a picture of my kiwi bowl, perfectly rendering the fruit's glistening texture, the bowl's smooth surface, and the light-green flesh.
When I snapped a photo of these flowers, the rear camera struggled to capture the petals' rich lavender hue accurately.
As long as you don't plan to take important video calls outside, the 11 Plus' camera is OK for indoor virtual meetings, though you won't get the top-of-the-line quality that you'd get from pricier tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, which has a 12MP selfie camera and a 13MP rear shooter.
The 11 Plus ships with Android 15, and after checking for updates, the newer Android 16 hasn't reached this device yet, never mind Android 17. TCL isn't publicly transparent about its OS upgrade and security patch schedules. I reached out to TCL to help nail down the support window; I'll update this review if I hear back.
The Idea Tab Plus promises just two years of major OS and security upgrades, while the iPad has an expected minimum of five years of software support.
The 11 Plus doesn’t bloat the OS with too many unnecessary apps. It comes with a suite of Google ecosystem apps, as well as a handful of AI-powered tools, including Smart Translator and Smart Voice Memo.
Smart Translator is designed for face-to-face conversations between people who speak different languages. First, you'll need to download the language you want. More than a dozen options are available, from Spanish and Italian to Portuguese and Turkish. The record button faces you, so you can speak in your native language. The other person can then see your translated speech on the opposite side of the screen and tap the record button to respond in their own language. In testing, the translations aren't zippy; there's a delay of a few seconds before they appear.
Smart Voice Memo records and transcribes audio. It supports recordings between 15 seconds and two minutes. The app takes about a minute to transcribe recordings. It can also generate summaries, which is helpful if you want a sneak peek at the contents of your recordings without playing them.
There’s also a radio app, but you’ll need to plug in a wired headset for it to work because the headset cable doubles as the FM antenna. I fired up stations I haven't listened to in a long time, including The Beat of New York (i.e., 103.5 KTU) and Z100. The experience was surprisingly enjoyable, giving me an easy way to discover new music by tapping into live radio.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Kimberly Gedeon)
TCL Nxtpaper 11 Plus
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
The $369.99 TCL Nxtpaper 11 Plus could be a good fit for beginner digital artists looking for an affordable tablet, stylus, and case in one package. It’s also great for readers who want a do-it-all device, but its heavier build may feel cumbersome for those who like to curl up in bed with a tablet. If you need more performance for mobile gaming or productivity, the 11 Plus may feel too sluggish. In that case, the faster 11th-gen Apple iPad and Lenovo Idea Tab Pro are superior choices for slightly less money, while the Idea Tab Plus still provides faster performance for $90 less.
About Our Expert
I’m PCMag’s Senior Writer for Mobile on the Consumer Electronics team, diving into the latest phones, tablets, Bluetooth speakers, audio devices, and other portable gear. I’ve been covering consumer technology for six years. Before joining PCMag, I contributed my tech expertise to Laptop Magazine, Mashable, Tom’s Guide, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, and more.
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