The world of PC gaming handhelds is about to get a whole lot more exciting, and not just because AMD has just announced a brand new CPU for them. One of the best new products I had the pleasure of trying out at CES was the new Lenovo Legion Go S, which uses SteamOS rather than Windows, and in many ways, itβs the handheld device weβve all been waiting for.
With Valveβs own Steam Deck devices already commanding the top two spots on our best handheld gaming PC guide, thereβs a good chance the new Lenovo Legion Go S could make it there too. Itβs all very well packing the fastest hardware possible into your handheld, but thereβs a lot to be said for the simple usability of SteamOS on a handheld, as well as the benefits of Valveβs Steam Deck Verified scheme.
The new Lenovo Legion Go S gets off to a good start with its rounded, elegant design, which has much less of a pointy, Wacky Races vibe than the original Lenovo Legion Go. You donβt get Nintendo Switch-style detachable controllers here, but you do get a device that feels just right in your hands, with all the buttons falling into the right places for your fingers and thumbs.
If thereβs one criticism itβs that the type of plastic used to make the shell feels a bit cheap under your fingers. The texture added to the left and right edges of the device do give it a good amount of grip when youβre holding it, but the shell doesnβt have the premium feel of the Steam Deck OLED. It does look good, though, particularly in the black used for the SteamOS version of the handheld (only the Windows version will come in white).
Not only that, but the black shell has an iridescent purple sheen that you can see when you catch it in the light. It looks genuinely gorgeous, especially with the glowing light surrounding the thumbsticks. Flip it over and youβll find the honeycomb-style vents for the cooling system, and you can see a fan under the right one as well. The screen looks great as well, with bright colors and decent image quality.
What most impressed me about the new Lenovo Legion Go S, though, was the usability of the OS. I fired up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and not only was the game smoothly playable, but all the controls were right where they should be, with the on-screen prompts directing me to the right buttons. This might seem obvious, but itβs absolutely not a given in the handheld world, where you have to configure PC games designed for a keyboard mouse for your handheldβs controls.
It wonβt be perfectly set up for every game, of course, but the Steam Deck Verified scheme takes a lot of the pain away β before you buy a game, you have a good idea of whether it will run or not. If itβs Steam Deck Verified you know it will work well and be set up right. Some games, such as Cyberpunk 2077, also have a specific Steam Deck graphics preset to choose. If Valve gives it a Playable rating, you also know it will work, but you may have to deal with some text thatβs too small for the screen, or you might need to use the trackpads and virtual keyboard to navigate the menus.
The OS also worked smoothly, enabling me to browse the game library, set up the controls, change the settings, and so on, just as on the Steam Deck itself, or indeed the Nintendo Switch β you just hit the Steam button and navigate with the thumbsticks. Sadly, I wasnβt able to run any performance tests on the new device, but it contains a new AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip, which is more powerful than the chip in the Steam Deck.
Like the latterβs CPU, it has four cores, but theyβre based on the Zen 3+ architecture, which is a good deal more powerful than the Zen 2 architecture used to power the Steam Deckβs chip. It can also boost to up to 4.3GHz, while the Steam Deck CPU can only boost to 3.5GHz. The GPU is improved as well, with the chip in the Lenovo having 12 RDNA 3.5 compute units, rather than the eight RDNA 2 compute units in the Steam Deckβs Van Gogh GPU.
Lenovo wouldnβt be drawn on whether the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S would be faster than the Windows version, but the companyβs senior global product marketing manager, Christopher Piazza, did tell me that it would recommend the SteamOS version if you were mainly interested in games, and the Windows version if you wanted to run more than games.
Many companies have produced gaming handhelds over the last couple of years, but none of them have managed to knock the Steam Deck off its perch yet, despite their superior processing power. Based on our time with the Lenovo Legion Go S, that could all change in the future. Making a good handheld is as much about usability as it is about power, and Lenovo has shown that it can potentially charge forward on both fronts.
In the meantime, if youβve yet to snap up a handheld for yourself, check out our Steam Deck OLED review, as well as our Asus ROG Ally X review, where we give two of the latest portable gaming devices a workout.
