Lenovo Legion Go Review: The Swiss Army Knife Of Handheld Gaming PCs

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EDITORS’ RATING: 8/ 10

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The Lenovo Legion Go is the most recent– and perhaps the most ingenious– portable video gaming gadget to follow in the steps of the Steam Deck, the success of which opened the floodgates for portable PC video game consoles. Many follow a relatively comparable pattern in regards to style, however the Legion Go shakes things up with removable controllers– to name a few concealed functions.

At its core, it assures to be more effective than other portable video game consoles, coupled with an extensive, high-resolution screen and the flexibility of Windows 11. On paper, the Legion Go has what it requires to take the crown from Valve and its other rivals, however as a first-generation item that’s pursuing the Swiss Army Knife technique, we truly need to go hands-on to discover if it measures up to the buzz.

Lenovo supplied a Legion Go and the Legion Glasses for the functions of this evaluation.

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At 1.88 pounds (854 grams), the Legion Go is certainly a portable that is more comfy to cradle in your lap or rest on a table. It’s likewise rather chunky in its percentages. It’s not huge or heavy enough for this to be a dealbreaker. The rather angular shape of the controllers isn’t the most comfy style possible, however it likewise wasn’t undesirable to utilize, even for relatively long video gaming sessions.

The readily available IO on the Legion Go is truly well considered. You get 2 USB-C 4.0 ports, both of which assistance DisplayPort and power shipment, one on the top of the Legion Go and one on the bottom. This is in fact a huge benefit over contending gadgets, much of which just consist of one USB-C port. Having 2 permits you to not just plug in numerous devices at the same time without dongles, it likewise permits you to pick which side you desire the charging cable television to connect to. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air. There’s likewise a 3.5 mm earphone jack and a microSD card slot.

The bring case the Legion Go is available in is high quality and extremely protective, an outright requirement for a portable gadget like this. You likewise get a charging brick and magnetic controller represent FPS mode.

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The huge celebration technique of the Legion Go, which will draw instant parallels to the Nintendo Switch, is the removable controllers. The tablet part of the Legion Go has a kickstand, which is reassuringly strong, so the system can be set on a table or plugged into a tv or screen. We simply want that Lenovo had actually consisted of some sort of port with which to link the 2 controllers together for such a circumstance. We would like to see some sort of keyboard device with clips on each side where the controllers might be installed. Utilizing them independently is great, however takes some getting utilized to.

Much of the controller’s design is relatively normal, with the exception of a trackpad, a 3rd trigger, and a scroll wheel. The trackpad works fine, though we didn’t discover much usage for it, however the scroll wheel is constantly a bit uncomfortable to utilize. The underside buttons are likewise a little too simple to strike mistakenly. The Legion Go functions haptic feedback, which is rather comparable in quality to other video gaming handhelds. The thumbsticks, buttons, and other controls all feel strong and high quality. The base of each thumbstick even includes personalized RGB lighting.

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The rather odd elements of the controller design make more sense when you turn the turn on the right-hand controller to “FPS” and connect it to the consisted of magnetic base plate. This turns it into a sort of mouse that you grip like a flight stick. It definitely makes some video games more playable than if you just had thumbsticks, however it takes a long period of time to adjust. We likewise discovered that with a lot of video games we required to tailor the button design when utilizing the Legion Go in FPS setup.

Considering that you grip the controller in a different way than you would a mouse, you actually need to be client and develop the required muscle memory before this setup might actually be as excellent as utilizing a mouse. Getting utilized to utilizing the scroll wheel with your thumb is especially strange. It’s a remarkably ingenious option, and having mouselike control in a gadget like this is genuinely special and not to be smelled at. If you put the time in to end up being familiar with FPS mode with the Legion Go, your benefit is a portable video gaming PC with what is basically a concealed integrated mouse.

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In regards to raw power, the Legion Go is among the most powerful portable video gaming systems offered. It includes an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, which boasts 8 cores and sixteen threads, in addition to an RDNA 4 GPU. This high-end processor is supported by 16GB of 7500Mhz LPDDR5X RAM. Completion outcome was that we had the ability to take pleasure in a variety of just recently launched video games such as “Lies of P”.

“Lies of P” preserved regularly playable frame rates at medium settings and optimum screen resolution. The Legion Go showed a fantastic method to play this puppet-themed Souls-like video game. “Battlefield 2042”, on the other hand, showed to be a bit excessive for the Legion Go– while it was playable at minimum settings and a minimized resolution, the video game still experienced low framerates.

“Forza: Horizon 5”, “Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem”, and “World of Tanks” all ran well, though with a lot of graphically extensive video games we played, we discovered we generally needed to invest a long time tweaking visual settings to get things called in. This isn’t an issue with less requiring titles, however part of the factor to own a more effective portable like the Legion Go is to be able to play the current titles. In this method, the Legion Go is quite like a desktop PC, where it is likewise required to personalize the settings of each video game. “Forza: Horizon 5” looked amazing with medium settings and maxed out textures at complete resolution, and handled a strong 40fps.

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The 8.8-inch 2560 x 1600 IPS touchscreen screen with a quick refresh rate of 144Hz is truly great, and its 97% DCI-P3 score implies colors are precise and gorgeous. Visuals are crisp and clear, and it’s incredibly resistant to unintentional damage, thanks to the Gorilla Glass outside. At 500 nits, the screen is likewise good and brilliant. You will primarily just see the advantages of the QHD resolution and 144Hz revitalize rate in less graphically extreme video games. More requiring video games such as those talked about typically can’t strike both QHD resolution and 144Hz, even with minimum visual settings. Still, for less exhausting video games having that high refresh rate show a lot sharpness and information is fantastic, and it likewise enhances basic desktop navigation and video playback.

Compared to the Steam Deck OLED, the Legion Go screen is considerably bigger, and the high resolution of the screen is obvious when compared side-by-side. It likewise includes a greater refresh rate than the Steam Deck OLED. The OLED and HDR panel in the Steam Deck looks much better than the IPS panel in the Legion Go, so in practice, it’s a far better race than it may appear based on size and resolution alone.

Music, films, and video games all sound excellent when played utilizing the onboard speakers in the Legion Go. We enjoyed to take our earphones off and take pleasure in the onboard audio whenever it was courteous to do so.

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Even pressing the Legion Go to its limitation, it stayed peaceful and comfy to hold. At worst, it gave off a consistent whoosh of air, however the volume and quality of the noise were never ever offending, even in a peaceful space. This ended up being even more remarkable when we had a look through a thermal cam and discovered that temperature levels were effectively managed. The majority of the Legion Go hardly warms up at all, and there’s actually just one significant hotspot in the upper left-hand corner of the display screen. From the front, this never ever gone beyond 114.8 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius), while it hovered around 149 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius) when determined on the back panel.

This location is actually extremely little certainly, so you’re just most likely to observe it if you actively feel for it. Thanks in part to the removable system of the controllers, they’re rather separated from the body of the Legion Go, so even with the gadget totally put together and being utilized in portable setup we never ever even actually saw the Legion Go warm up.

Provided the likewise outstanding cooling system of the Lenovo Legion 9i laptop computer, it appears that Lenovo has actually mastered the art of producing effective computing gadgets that do not jeopardize when it concerns heat and sound.

Do not anticipate to play video games for long however, considering that if you’re utilizing the complete capacity of the Legion Go you should not anticipate more than an hour or two of battery life. You can extend this substantially by changing numerous efficiency settings, however in general it’s a glutton for electrical power.

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We concurrently like and dislike Windows 11 on the Legion Go. Having a full-fledged Windows desktop os on a portable gadget is exceptionally hassle-free, primarily due to the reality that it’s basic to set up whatever programs you want. This is opposed to SteamOS on the Valve Stem Deck, which can end up being a discouraging experience when you move beyond Steam’s curated environment. In this regard, the Legion Go is far more versatile, and right out of package, you get 3 complimentary months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate which introduces with no muss or hassle. The exact same chooses the Steam, Epic Game Store, Humble Bundle, GoG Galaxy, and even the much hated Uplay and EA apps.

What’s not so fantastic is Windows 11, which is cumbersome and annoying to utilize on a touchscreen gadget like this. Lenovo does have their custom-made launcher called “Legion Space” which is suggested to assist ravel the wrinkles in Windows 11, and the settings sidebar is really helpful. Both have their own devoted button on the controllers. They feel hurried and underdeveloped, so while we often brought up Lenovo’s settings menu to change the RGB lighting, resolution, and so on, we hardly ever utilized Legion Space.

By contrast, SteamOS on the Steam Deck supplies a smooth, console-quality experience total with enhanced ready-to-play “Deck-verified” video games. We hope Lenovo will keep enhancing Legion Space to one day supply a comparable experience to SteamOS, however one in which all video game stores are extremely available.

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At very first sight, and based upon Lenovo’s marketing, it’s simple to just submit the Legion Go in the “video gaming toy” basket and stop. When you get down to it, this is simply an ultra-portable touchscreen PC. All you require to do is link a Bluetooth or USB-C keyboard and it quickly ends up being a desktop PC, total with an integrated cordless mouse (of sorts). It might simply as quickly be utilized for work when it comes to play, and though it may be a bit odd to take out in a conference, there’s truly no factor you could not utilize this in location of a laptop computer or desktop.

Thanks to the Legion Go running Windows 11, software application compatibility for any efficiency programs you wish to run should not be an issue, and we might even see utilizing the Legion Go for picture and video modifying on the go. With all that stated, this is definitely a gaming-focused gadget, and we would think twice to suggest it as a productivity-first alternative. As a mobile video gaming gadget that can likewise carry out non-gaming jobs, it provides a genuine benefit over other portable video gaming consoles.

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We likewise had the chance to evaluate out the Legion Glasses with the Legion Go, and they are definitely intriguing. Simply put, the Legion Glasses are a wearable display camouflaged behind a set of relatively normal-looking tinted glasses. They utilize micro-OLED display screens close in front of your eyes to provide the impression of utilizing a far bigger screen. In practice, in spite of the consisted of nose pads to assist enhance fit, it’s challenging to locate the glasses in order to position the screen ideal in your vision. If you use prescription glasses, there is a prescription lens frame consisted of with the Legion Glasses.

While utilizing the Legion Glasses does permit you to utilize the screen in whatever position is most comfy, and it holds true that other individuals can’t see what you see when utilizing the Legion Glasses, the issue is that the Glasses’ integrated speakers have virtually no sound seclusion whatsoever. If you wish to listen to something without the entire space hearing, then you will require to utilize earphones or earbuds. They work with a large range of gadgets nevertheless, and the screen is extremely high quality, so if you’re trying to find a wearable screen, this is a choice.

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At a beginning rate of $699.99, the 512GB Lenovo Legion Go noted on Lenovo’s online shop is $50 more costly than the brand-new 1TB variation of the Steam Deck OLED, while the 1TB variation of the Legion Go will set you back $749.99. offered just how much more effective the Legion Go is, and if you include its enjoyable little celebration techniques and adaptability, that cost starts sounding rather affordable. You’re truly getting rather a lot for your cash. Provided the size of the modern-day video games you’ll likely wish to play if you’re purchasing the Legion Go, the $50 upgrade to a 1TB SSD appears like a sensible choice. 512GB does not go really far when specific video games significantly require upwards of 150 GB of your valuable storage.

The Legion Go does cost enough that it’s certainly priced on the premium end of the scale. There isn’t actually a deal to be discovered in this gadget at market price, however at the exact same time, it does provide good worth for cash.

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The Lenovo Legion Go is definitely among the more intriguing gadgets to introduce recently, and it’s a strong instructions for Lenovo to have actually pursued. The removable controllers and capability to change into different setups are truly cool functions– and certainly set it apart from other portable video gaming gadgets. Having what is basically an integrated mouse for accuracy-dependent video games and jobs is special in its application. It’s likewise remarkably effective, is developed to a robust requirement, and deals with heat dissipation with aplomb.

Low battery life and the annoying elements of Windows 11 on a touchscreen gadget are the essential elements holding it back, and in basic, there is a certain sensation about the Legion Go that this is quite a first-generation gadget. The seeds of achievement are certainly there, and this may be the finest Steam Deck rival out there. If you’re searching for a portable Windows 11 video gaming gadget that uses prospective effectiveness beyond video gaming, you will most likely like the Lenovo Legion Go.