Lenovo Legion Go overview: the Swiss Military knife of handhelds

Desire a handheld gaming PC? I wouldn’t suggest the $650 Lenovo Legion Go over a Steam Deck. Home windows 11 isn’t almost as handy and transportable as Valve’s Steam OS for enjoying Home windows video games on the go. Even Microsoft is aware of that.

However even when it’s not the perfect transportable recreation console, it’s a nifty transportable PC that may completely play video games. For the proper of Home windows gadgeteer, the Lenovo Legion Go may narrowly be definitely worth the money.

Although it’s roughly the identical worth as an Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo’s 8.8-inch transportable has all types of tips up its sleeve. It’s a robust Home windows pill with a pair of removable Nintendo Swap-like wi-fi controllers and a full-width kickstand — the higher to play at a desk, arise vertically for studying, or dock to a TV. Not like Nintendo’s Pleasure-Cons, the Go’s controllers have drift-resistant Corridor impact joysticks. Oh, and did I point out certainly one of them can remodel right into a vertical mouse with the flick of a swap? 

It additionally has two USB-C ports, every with 40Gbps of USB4 bandwidth, so you possibly can plug in a keyboard or SSD or perhaps a Thunderbolt 3 exterior GPU with out eradicating your charger lead. The Steam Deck and ROG Ally solely have one USB-C socket every.

However the Legion Go’s greatest benefit is straightforward: it has a considerably larger display. 

I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest handheld display: there’s completely no beating the Steam Deck OLED with regards to wealthy shade, deep blacks, explosive HDR, and value in a dim bed room. In the meantime, the ROG Ally’s variable refresh charge makes every little thing smoother; video games typically really feel sooner on the Ally even when the Legion Go is technically delivering extra frames per second.

However Lenovo’s shiny 8.8-inch, 2560 x 1600, 144Hz, 500-nit, and 97 % DCI-P3 Gorilla Glass 5-covered display makes a distinction. It’s the one which’s massive, crisp, and quick sufficient, it may well double as an honest Home windows pill for internet searching, studying, and streaming video. Maybe extra importantly, I don’t really feel I’m squinting as a lot after I play video games. 

A 12 months in the past, I wrote how I didn’t truly thoughts the Steam Deck’s dearth of aggressive multiplayer shooters like Fortnite, Future 2, and PUBG as a result of I by no means knew what (or who) hit me on the Deck’s seven-inch, 60Hz display. Neither the Deck OLED’s 7.3-inch, 90Hz panel nor the ROG Ally’s seven-inch, 120Hz display fastened that for me. However I may see some folks enjoying them on the 8.8-inch Legion Go — at the very least in the event that they get used to the marginally awkward controls.

I’m not a complete fan of how the Legion Go feels in my fingers. As a result of it weighs 1.88 kilos, half a pound greater than the ROG Ally and Steam Deck OLED and a full pound greater than a Nintendo Swap, I typically really feel like I want a tighter grip. However after I grip tightly, the not so rounded edges of Lenovo’s flat-faced handheld dig into my palms — and I discover myself awkwardly squishing all the additional buttons Lenovo crammed onto the perimeters and again. 

It appears like Lenovo made just a few too many compromises to present you a removable mouse, a pair of Pleasure-Cons, a touchpad, and 4 again buttons concurrently. The joysticks are advantageous, the marginally cramped face buttons are advantageous, the meaty triggers are even good, however the touchpad is simply too small, the D-pad and top-firing audio system are meh, and the suitable controller all the time has two additional buttons beneath my center finger, two extra buttons beneath my index finger, and a button beneath my pinky that I hadn’t bargained for.  

There’s a way to Lenovo’s insanity: if you happen to detach that controller and rotate it 90 levels to the left, these buttons line up together with your fingertips and thumb to present you a five-button vertical mouse, full with a 1,800 DPI optical mouse sensor on the Teflon-coated backside and a tiny scroll wheel round again. It’s neat, and I used to be happy to see Lenovo has some fairly first rate FPS presets mapped to every button, together with the keys you’ll generally use to crouch, bounce, and reload. The mouse defaults to 800 DPI, although you possibly can decide 500, 1,200, and 1,800 as properly.

However it’s not fairly so simple as simply popping off a Pleasure-Con and magically having a mouse. I’ve to yank every controller downward to launch them; pop off the joystick cap so it’s not in the best way; and slot the controller right into a magnetically connected Teflon-bottomed base to present the mouse sufficient stability that I don’t lose monitoring mid-game. Even then, I really feel the rest of the joystick’s protruding nub and its 5 copper pogo pins digging into my palms. 

I determine the form of energy consumer who’ll wish to navigate Home windows on the go may recognize this a part of the gadget, however I’d have fortunately given it up for a pair of higher front-firing audio system. 

Talking of energy, my Lenovo Legion Go is a bit sooner than the competitors! Anecdotally, it was the quickest to obtain video games (I noticed 750Mbps peak obtain speeds over Wi-Fi 6), the quickest to cost its 50Wh battery, and the quickest in most of my check mattress video games — so long as you’re prepared to present its AMD Ryzen Z1 Excessive chip just a little fuel, that’s. 

You need to know that the chip in a Steam Deck is relatively completely different from the chip in most different handheld gaming PCs. The place the Deck’s “Aerith” and “Sephiroth” have been designed for a handheld energy envelope of between 4 and 15 watts, the AMD Z1 Excessive is a shrunken-down laptop computer chip that targets 9 to 30 watts — and as you possibly can see in my chart, it didn’t start to beat the Steam Deck till I fed it extra than 15 watts of electrical energy. 

The flip aspect is that, not like the Steam Deck, you possibly can optionally sacrifice your battery life to the gods of efficiency, pushing a Legion Go or ROG Ally chip as excessive as 30 watts for a significant increase in pace, and I noticed my Legion Go even outperform the ROG Ally after I started to present it that juice. It constantly pulled forward in Murderer’s Creed Valhalla, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Returnal, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider — generally by just a few frames, generally by 10 or 20 %. 

However even once you’re attempting to preserve the Legion Go’s 49.2Wh battery, you possibly can solely go thus far.

I used to be in a position to handle 4 hours and 41 minutes of Slay the Spire, one of many least demanding video games in my library, however even Dave the Diver gave me not more than two hours and 27 minutes at a stretch. I acquired an hour and a half of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, two hours of Nier: Automata, and two hours and 10 minutes of Armored Core VI, all working at a mere 800p or decrease decision. Once I tried Ori and the Will of the Wisps at 1200p, I solely acquired an hour and 39 minutes.

For comparability, the Steam Deck OLED lasted a whole additional hour of Nier: Automata, went 43 minutes longer than the Legion Go in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and gave me almost double the battery life in Dave the Diver at 4 hours and 42 minutes. It tells me I ought to get 9 hours of Slay the Spire. I ought to word, my Deck OLED truly lasted seven fewer minutes in Armored Core VI, although.

Does the Legion Go at the very least provide extra battery life than the Asus ROG Ally as a result of its 20 % bigger battery pack? Nicely… I did get an additional 41 minutes of Dave the Diver on the Legion Go, however battery life was nearly an identical in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Dust Rally and lasted simply 16 minutes longer in Armored Core. 

With the Legion Go, the battery all the time feels prefer it’s visibly ticking down… and like different Home windows handhelds, it ticks even sooner when near empty. You may take a Steam Deck to three % battery earlier than it’s essential to severely take into account saving a recreation or plugging into the wall. With the Legion Go, even reaching 10 % places me within the hazard zone.

I’m comfortable to say the Legion Go doesn’t lose a number of battery whereas it’s fully shut down, however even that’s a little bit of a backhanded praise — as a result of shutting down is the one manner I’ve been in a position to reliably put it away. Many occasions, I’ll discover it wakes itself up proper after I put it to sleep.

Talking of platform stability, you need to know that the Legion Go’s Legion Area software program remains to be a piece in progress, just like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally earlier than it, and it’s lagging far behind Valve and a methods behind Asus when it comes to options. The flexibility to remap the gamepad is minimal at greatest, and you may’t even save mappings for every of your video games with Lenovo’s software program — you’ll have to depend on Steam or one other third-party app.

As I write these phrases, Lenovo’s nonetheless attempting to handle some stuttering SD card readers (one thing I haven’t skilled myself) and add correct gyro help. The fan’s not loud, however it may be just a little whiny, even in its lowest energy mode. 

However I’ve to confess, it’s much less buggy than the Asus was at launch, and Lenovo’s being fairly clear with the neighborhood. Lenovo product supervisor Ben Myers drops into the official subreddit and Discord nearly each week to speak about which points and enhancements the engineering crew’s engaged on subsequent, and it’s been good to see it enhance! 

At launch, I might need dinged Lenovo for forcing me to achieve all the way down to the bottom of my thumb to hit Begin and Choose buttons or manually navigate to an internet site to obtain updates. Ditto the way you needed to join an influence provide earlier than switching the display’s refresh charge or tape over the facility button’s brilliant LED to keep away from mild air pollution whereas charging it in a darkish bed room. However Lenovo has locations to tweak every of those in software program now, plus adjustable fan curves, adjustable sensitivity and deadzones for the joysticks, user-adjustable presets for varied energy modes, and an FPS limiter. 

The largest factor I need, although, is a technique to make all my video games launch full-screen. That’s how they work on Steam Deck however not all the time on Home windows, and I’ve run into awkward windowed video games extra typically with the Legion Go than I did with the ROG Ally. Within the official subreddit, some folks appear to be forcing full-screen of their Steam launch choices for particular person video games.

I’m not going to rehash my complete “Home windows is holding again gaming handhelds” argument right here, as not a lot has modified since I reviewed the Ally. However the Legion Go’s 8.8-inch display and removable controllers do assist. It’s simpler to pull round home windows and faucet on icons with the bigger contact targets that Lenovo’s display provides me, and it doesn’t harm that the Gorilla Glass 5-covered panel is easy, straightforward to wash, and responsive to the touch.

Once I pop off the controllers, I may even attain the digital keyboard keys with out stretching my thumbs if I maintain the pill in portrait mode or invoke Microsoft’s cut up keyboard (which provides you left and proper keyboard halves) in panorama. No extra reaching over joysticks! I wouldn’t wish to kind a Verge story on this factor, however I’m discovering it’s an incredible dimension for searching from the sofa. 

I wouldn’t purchase a Legion Go, as my Steam Deck fits me higher, however I genuinely suppose Lenovo’s onto one thing with this type issue. It’s an intriguing cross between a Microsoft Floor and a Nintendo Swap however with gaming chops that surpass each. I wouldn’t be stunned if the subsequent model comes with an non-obligatory Floor-like folding keyboard cowl.

Free recommendation: put a pink ThinkPad TrackPoint nub in the midst of that keyboard if you happen to actually need computing nerds to go wild. 

Pictures by Sean Hollister / The Verge