Lenovo Legion Go: A New Challenger in the Handheld PC Gaming Arena

Lenovo is expanding its PC gaming footprint to the handled PC market, currently dominated by Valve’s Stem Deck and ASUS’ ROG Ally. During an event in Berlin, the company unveiled its heavily rumored first Windows gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go, and we had the opportunity to play with it.

With that in mind, Lenovo has carefully crafted its design and product positioning to be extremely competitive, when not outright beating, its competition. The display was an obvious improvement over existing alternatives.

At the core of the Legion Go lies an 8.8-inch QHD+ 16:10 Lenovo PureSight gaming display. Delivering a peak brightness of 500 nits and featuring a 97% DCI-P3 color gamut, the display is adaptable to various gameplays and supports resolutions ranging from 1600p to 800p and refresh rates of 144Hz and 60Hz. The 10-point touch screen enables intuitive control through scrolling, tapping, or swiping.

Powered by an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor combined with AMD RNDA Graphics and intelligent power management technology, the Lenovo Legion Go runs on Windows 11. The Legion Go features up to 16GB RAM (LPDDR5X), a PCIe Gen4 SSD of up to 1TB, and a micro-SD slot supporting up to 2TB of extra storage.

The 49.2Wh battery, like many 13.3-inch laptops, offers extended gaming sessions, with Super Rapid Charge2 capability recharging up to 70% in 30 minutes, according to Lenovo.

Thanks to the battery-saving power bypass mode that minimizes heat during charging, the device is safeguarded against degradation. The Coldfront thermal system, with a whisper-quiet 79-blade fan, ensures efficient cooling below 25dB in Quiet Mode, while Custom Mode maintains peak 25W TGP for high-performance gaming. For comparison, 25dB is like a suburban area at night.

The Lenovo Legion Go controllers feature hall effect joysticks that eliminate joystick drift and minimize dead zones, enhancing responsiveness and accuracy during extended gaming sessions. The device incorporates various inputs, including an integrated trackpad, a spacious D-pad, an angled mouse wheel, and 10 mappable shoulder buttons, triggers, and grip buttons.

The power button features RGB lighting with the iconic Lenovo brand ‘O’, changing colors to indicate user-selectable fan modes. Customizable RGB rings around the joysticks serve as a notification system. Notably, the detachable brand2 TrueStrike controllers offer playstyle flexibility and a dedicated FPS mode. In FPS mode, one controller is detached, affixed to a magnetic base, and acts as a joystick.

On the connectivity side, the device boasts dual USB Type-C ports for extended connectivity, accommodating docking, charging, and accessory connection, along with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 support.

This device also introduces Lenovo’s new Legion Space, a gateway to access your platforms and game stores. It’s not merely a shortcut: you can even purchase games via Legion Space, an interesting potential arbitrage play. We would not be surprised if Lenovo were to extend this in the future.

Given its size, Lenovo can negotiate bundles and deals, so keep an eye on the offerings and gauge their value to you. Finally, Legion Space is also where players can tweak common settings such as resolution, Hz, brightness, etc. Undoubtedly, it’s a good way to attract more visits to that software. Nicely played, Lenovo.

Eliane Fiolet
Categories: Gaming
Tags: IFA, IFA 2023, Lenovo, Lenovo Legion, portable gaming