The Great Handheld Arms Race

The world of PC gaming is no longer chained to the desk. A seismic shift, kicked off by Valve’s game-changing Steam Deck, has ignited a fierce arms race among hardware giants. From the raw power of the ASUS ROG Ally to the unique modularity of Lenovo’s own original Legion Go, the battle for your backpack space has never been more intense. It’s a market projected to be worth over $3.5 billion by 2028, and every manufacturer wants a bigger piece of the action. Into this fray steps Lenovo’s latest contender: the Legion Go S. It’s not a direct successor, but rather a strategic flanking maneuver. The “S” could stand for many things—Slim, Streamlined, or perhaps most accurately, Steam. This device is Lenovo’s calculated bet on a specific kind of player: the one who lives and breathes Valve’s ecosystem and craves a more portable, less cumbersome window into their library.

Priced aggressively with a starting tag of $649.99, the Legion Go S immediately undercuts many high-performance rivals and even some budget gaming laptops. It’s a bold statement, positioning itself as a premium alternative to the Steam Deck without reaching the wallet-straining heights of the top-tier competition. But this attractive price point is the result of a series of deliberate compromises. The detachable controllers are gone. The built-in kickstand has been jettisoned. And its primary configuration boots directly into SteamOS, creating a beautifully curated—but undeniably walled—garden. The core question is a simple one: has Lenovo trimmed the fat, or have they cut into the muscle? We’ve spent weeks putting this midnight blue machine through its paces to find out if this is the new champion of the portable middleweight division.

A Study in Design and Sacrifice

The first thing you notice when you pick up the Legion Go S is the weight, or rather, the lack of it. Weighing in at just 1.63 pounds (around 740 grams), it’s noticeably lighter than its 1.88-pound predecessor. While a quarter-pound might not sound like much on paper, it’s a difference you can feel in your wrists after an hour-long session of Hades II. This weight reduction is the direct result of shedding the complex locking mechanisms for the detachable controllers and the integrated kickstand. The result is a more cohesive, solid-feeling unibody design that feels less like a collection of parts and more like a single, purposeful device. It’s a trade-off that many gamers, particularly those who play exclusively in handheld mode, will likely see as a net positive.

A Midnight Hue and a Confident Grip

Lenovo has opted for a striking “midnight blue” chassis, a welcome departure from the sea of black, white, and grey devices that dominate the market. The hard plastic casing feels premium and robust, with thoughtfully textured grips on the back that provide a secure and comfortable hold. It resists fingerprints better than most glossy competitors, though a greasy snack session will inevitably leave its mark. The ergonomics are sound; my thumbs fell naturally onto the asymmetrical analog sticks, which Lenovo claims are “anti-drift” hall effect joysticks. They feel wonderfully taut and precise, with a smooth range of motion that lends itself well to both twitchy shooters and sweeping camera movements in third-person adventures. The face buttons, shoulder buttons, and rear triggers all offer a firm, satisfying click with just the right amount of travel, providing confident feedback with every press.

Points of Contention in Control

Not all is perfect in the land of ergonomics, however. The non-detachable nature of the controllers, while beneficial for weight and rigidity, removes the “FPS mode” and tabletop play versatility that made the original Legion Go so unique. It’s a focused design, for better or worse. The D-Pad is another point of contention. While perfectly serviceable for navigating menus or swapping items in an RPG, it feels a tad too stiff for the precision required in fighting games. Attempting to pull off complex quarter-circle or half-circle inputs for special moves in Street Fighter 6 felt more like a chore than a fluid motion. Furthermore, tucked away beneath the right joystick is a tiny, almost comically small, square touchpad. While functional for navigating the occasional desktop menu in SteamOS, its size makes it impractical for anything more than minor cursor adjustments. It feels like an afterthought, a checkbox ticked rather than a fully realized feature.

Under the Hood: The Power of the Z-Series

At the heart of any gaming handheld is its System-on-a-Chip (SoC), and Lenovo offers the Go S with two distinct flavors of AMD’s latest Z-series processors, designed specifically for this form factor. The base model, which we tested, comes equipped with the new AMD Ryzen Z2 Go, while a more expensive configuration boasts the formidable Ryzen Z1 Extreme—the same chip that powers the original Legion Go and the ASUS ROG Ally. Both configurations come with a healthy 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, ensuring that multitasking and background processes don’t choke your gaming experience.

Real-World Gauntlet: Performance and Compromise

The crucial question is how that Z2 Go chip performs in the wild. We threw a wide variety of titles at it, from lightweight indie darlings to demanding AAA behemoths. The results paint a picture of a capable, but not overpowering, machine that rewards a willingness to tinker with settings.

The Indie Darling’s Dream Machine

This is where the Legion Go S truly shines. On its gorgeous 8-inch, 1920x1200p IPS screen, indie games are a revelation. The display boasts a blistering 120Hz refresh rate, which makes fast-paced action feel incredibly smooth and responsive. Titles like Hollow Knight and Cuphead were a joy to play, their fluid animations rendered without a hint of stutter or screen tearing. The screen’s vibrant color reproduction, covering 97% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, made the technicolor chaos of Hades II pop off the screen with an almost electric vibrancy. For the gamer with a massive backlog of celebrated indie titles from countless Steam Sales, the Go S is an elegant and powerful way to finally tackle that list.

Pushing the Limits: The AAA Challenge

When it comes to modern, graphically intensive AAA games, the narrative shifts from effortless enjoyment to calculated compromise. We tested the recently released action RPG Black Myth: Wukong, a notoriously demanding title. By dropping the resolution to 720p and using the “Low” graphical preset, we were able to achieve a relatively stable and playable framerate that hovered around 40 fps. It was a smooth enough experience to be enjoyable, showcasing the Z2 Go’s ability to punch above its weight class. However, curiosity got the better of us, and we cranked the settings up to “Cinematic” at the native 1200p resolution. The result was an unmitigated disaster. The game chugged along at an unplayable, slideshow-like 17 fps, a clear signal that this device has its limits. Similarly, in Baldur’s Gate 3, achieving a steady 30-40 fps required a mix of medium-to-low settings and leveraging AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling technology. You can play these games, and they can even look quite good on the 8-inch screen, but you cannot simply install them, max out the settings, and expect a flawless experience.

A Feast for the Senses, A Famine for the Battery

Beyond raw performance, the user experience is defined by the screen and sound, but it’s all powered by a battery that struggles to keep up with the device’s ambitions.

The 8-Inch Canvas and Deceptive Audio

While not the pixel-dense QHD+ panel of its larger sibling, the 8-inch 1200p screen on the Go S is still a standout feature. Its 16:10 aspect ratio provides more vertical screen real estate than the 16:9 standard, which is great for both gaming and browsing. With 500 nits of brightness, it’s usable in most indoor conditions, though it will struggle in direct sunlight. The 120Hz refresh rate, as mentioned, is a game-changer for titles that can push high frame rates, providing a level of fluidity that the 60Hz Steam Deck can’t match. Paired with this excellent display is a surprisingly robust set of stereo speakers. They get remarkably loud without significant distortion, producing a full-bodied sound that belies the device’s slim profile. While headphones will always provide a more immersive experience, the built-in audio is more than capable for a quick gaming session on the couch.

The Achilles’ Heel: Living on Borrowed Time

Here we arrive at the Legion Go S’s most significant weakness, a flaw it shares with nearly every other powerful PC handheld on the market: abysmal battery life. During our testing, with the device set to its “Balanced” performance profile and screen brightness at 50%, we consistently managed just around 2 hours and 30 minutes of gameplay before the battery warning appeared. Pushing the device to its “Performance” mode to eke out a few more frames in a demanding title saw that number plummet to under 90 minutes. This is sufficient for a typical daily commute on a bus or train, but for a cross-country flight or an extended trip, you will be tethered to a power bank or wall outlet. Lenovo notes that the device can last over 8 hours for non-gaming tasks like web browsing or video streaming, but let’s be realistic: no one is buying the Legion Go S to check their emails. It’s a gaming machine, and in its primary function, its endurance is severely limited.

The SteamOS Question: A Curated Experience

The default operating system on the Legion Go S is Valve’s SteamOS, the same Linux-based software that powers the Steam Deck. This choice has profound implications for the user experience, offering both streamlined simplicity and frustrating limitations.

A Seamless, Game-First Interface

For a dedicated Steam user, the experience is nearly flawless. The interface is clean, snappy, and designed from the ground up for controller navigation. The dedicated Steam and Quick Access buttons are brilliant additions. A press of the Steam button brings up the familiar sidebar to access your library, the store, and your friends list without fully exiting your game. The Quick Access button summons a separate overlay, allowing you to instantly tweak performance profiles, screen brightness, Wi-Fi, and other critical settings on the fly. It’s an intuitive and elegant system that keeps you in the game and out of confusing settings menus.

The Walls of the Garden

The downside, of course, is that SteamOS is designed primarily for Steam. While it’s technically possible for savvy users to install other game launchers like the Epic Games Store, GOG Galaxy, or EA Play, the process is far from straightforward. It often requires diving into the Linux desktop mode, using community-developed tools like Lutris or Heroic Games Launcher, and a significant amount of troubleshooting. For a casual user who just wants to play their GOG copy of The Witcher 3, this can be an intimidating and frustrating barrier. While a Windows 11 version of the Go S is available, the primary SteamOS model is a device that heavily presumes your gaming life revolves almost exclusively around Valve’s storefront. This isn’t just a non-issue for hardcore Steam fans; for many, it’s a key part of the appeal, offering a console-like experience free from the clutter and overhead of a full Windows desktop.

The Final Verdict: Should You Enlist with the Legion Go S?

After extensive testing, the Lenovo Legion Go S reveals itself to be a thoughtfully designed, highly specific piece of hardware. It’s not trying to be the most powerful handheld on the market, nor is it the most versatile. Instead, it’s a focused, refined machine that makes smart compromises to deliver a premium Steam gaming experience at a more accessible price point. It’s a compelling package, but it’s certainly not for everyone.

The Ideal Recruit:

This device is a fantastic choice for the gamer with a vast Steam library who prioritizes portability and screen quality. If you primarily play indie titles, older AAA games, or don’t mind spending a few minutes tweaking settings to get modern games running smoothly, the Go S is a winner. Its lighter weight makes it more comfortable for long sessions than its bigger brother, and its 120Hz screen is a true delight. It’s the perfect companion for your daily commute or for cozying up on the couch to finally clear out that backlog.

Reasons to Stand Down:

If you demand the absolute best performance and want to run every new release on high settings without compromise, you should look elsewhere—likely towards the Z1 Extreme version of this device or a full-fledged gaming laptop. The short battery life is a legitimate deal-breaker for anyone who travels frequently without reliable access to power. And if your game library is spread across multiple digital storefronts, the hoops you’ll need to jump through on SteamOS might be more trouble than they’re worth, making the Windows 11 version a more logical, albeit potentially less streamlined, choice. The Legion Go S is a masterful exercise in compromise, a lighter blade for a more precise strike. Whether that strike hits the mark depends entirely on what kind of gamer you are.

Source: https://www.techradar.com