TecRah

This article is compiled from IGN US related content, originally written by Jacqueline Thomas, translated by Tonkotsu Ramen, edited by Kamui Ye, and may not be reproduced without permission.

When Lenovo announced the Legion Go S at CES, I thought it was just a lightweight model that builds on the chunky handheld that came before it. And in many ways, the Windows 11 version of the machine does fit that niche. But the Lenovo Legion Go S will also be available in a SteamOS version that’s $100 cheaper and much less difficult to use. This machine gave me a glimpse into the future of SteamOS. And in the gaming PC and gaming laptop market, SteamOS could very well be a strong competitor to Windows.

SteamOS is no longer exclusive to Steam Deck.

Design

Looking at the photos released at the press conference, I originally thought that the Lenovo Legion Go S would be much smaller than the original Legion Go, but I was wrong. Turns out I was wrong, the Legion Go S is about the same size as the ASUS ROG Ally X, the best handheld gaming PC on the market today. Despite the large screen, it still feels comfortable to hold, especially without the square corners of the original machine.

The Legion Go S has a smooth, rounded exterior that fits the shape of your hand perfectly. The grainy material in the grip area is likely designed to be non-slip. The back of the handle hides the device’s only extra buttons, two pedal-style back buttons, one on each side. In contrast to the legion Go, the original machine has a large number of extra buttons on the back, and both grips can be removed and used in place of a mouse.

The Legion Go S retains the trackpad on the front of the machine, but it’s significantly smaller. On the Windows 11 version of the machine, you can use the trackpad to easily turn on and off the system menu, but the SteamOS version I got to try out didn’t have touch enabled. A Valve rep told me that they’re working on a fix for that, and that the machine should work fine when it goes on sale at the end of this month.

On the front, of course, there are a few buttons that come standard on all handheld PCs. The buttons all feel great, as do the RGB colors around the joystick, a feature Valve adapted in SteamOS specifically for the Legion Go S. The most striking design, however, is actually the RGB colors. But the highlight of the design is actually the menu button. Just like any other handheld device, there are four menu buttons in total, two on the left and two on the right. The top two are the Start and Select keys, while the bottom two are for calling up Steam or the Quick Settings menu. Unlike other handhelds, the Legion Go S’s menu buttons are quick and silky smooth, with menus popping up as soon as you press them. The ROG Ally, on the other hand, has to wait a second for the Armoury Crate to pop up, and sometimes it doesn’t even respond at all.

The upper part of the case is a cooling vent that covers the area between the two trigger keys. The power button, headphone jack, and USB C port are still in place.

The screen on the Lenovo Legion Go S is an 8-inch 1200p LCD panel with a 120Hz refresh rate for a great display. The screen is large enough for you to see whatever game you’re playing, and bright enough to use in the brightly lit room where we tried it out at CES. The screen is perhaps the biggest upgrade from the Steam Deck, as Valve’s own handheld still only has an 800p resolution screen.

Performance

The Windows 11 and SteamOS versions are powered by the recently announced Z2 Go chip or the current generation Z1 Extreme chip respectively. Obviously, I would need a lot of in-depth testing to know exactly how the game performs, but the games I tried had high frame rates The games Lenovo prepared in the demo did not eat the configuration .

In addition to the core APU, the Legion Go S comes with up to 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB of SSD. I’m not sure what configuration the demo machine was, though. So if you’re interested in this handheld, stay tuned for our official review.

While we don’t know how the Legion Go S will perform in real-world games, I’m very optimistic about the handheld, which has a very competitive price tag of $4,392.

Pricing and Pre-Ordering

Lenovo’s Legion Go S is currently available in two versions at different dates The Z1 Extreme’s premium Windows 11 version will be available at the end of January, priced at RMB 5,350. The Z2 Go model will go on sale in May, priced at RMB 4,392 for the Windows 11 version and RMB 3,666 for the SteamOS version.