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Lenovo’s latest stab at the handheld gaming market, the Legion Go S, is here, and it’s a curious beast. It’s not a full sequel to the original Legion Go but more like a remix: a sleeker, simpler take on portable PC gaming. After spending a couple of weeks with it, I’ve got mixed feelings. It’s comfy, looks great, and has some clever ideas, but it stumbles in places that keep it from being the champ it could’ve been. Let’s dig in.
Straight out of the box, the Legion Go S feels like Lenovo finally nailed the ergonomics. Unlike the original’s detachable controller gimmick, this one’s a single, solid unit with rounded edges and a grippy texture that hugs your hands. At 1.61 pounds, it’s not featherlight- my arms felt it after an hour of Elden Ring- but it’s balanced well enough that I didn’t mind. The joysticks sit just right for my thumbs, and the triggers? Oh, those triggers. They’ve got adjustable travel distance via little sliders, letting you switch between a full pull or a quick tap. I flipped them to “rapid” mode for shooters, and it’s like clicking a premium mouse: crisp and satisfying.
The layout’s intuitive, too. The Start and Select buttons flank the screen sensibly, though I accidentally hit Lenovo’s custom menu keys above them a few times while pausing games. Muscle memory adjusted after a day, but it’s a small annoyance worth noting. Overall, this thing’s a joy to hold, better than the Steam Deck or ROG Ally in my book.
The 8-inch IPS display is a standout. It’s not OLED, so don’t expect inky blacks, but at 1920x1200 with a 120Hz refresh rate, it’s sharp and smooth. Playing Horizon Forbidden West, the colors sang, lush greens and fiery oranges leapt off the screen. It hits 500 nits of brightness, which handled my sunny balcony just fine. Variable refresh rate (VRR) keeps things fluid even when frame rates dip, a lifesaver for handhelds. Compared to the original Legion Go’s 8.8-inch 1440p panel, this feels like a downgrade on paper, but in practice? I didn’t miss the extra pixels. 720p upscaling looks cleaner here than pushing 1440p on weaker hardware.
The catch? The speakers. They’re front-facing, which is smart, but at 2W each, they’re tinny and lack punch. I swapped earbuds for Wolfenstein—the soundtrack deserves better than what these can muster.
Powering the Legion Go S is AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Go, a custom chip with four cores and eight threads on Zen 3+ architecture. It’s paired with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD—plenty of muscle for a handheld, right? Well, sort of. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 720p medium settings, I got a steady 36 FPS at 30W TDP. Not bad, but the ROG Ally X with its Z1 Extreme hit 38 FPS under similar conditions. Cyberpunk 2077 at 720p low averaged 33 FPS. It's playable, but the Steam Deck OLED outpaces it at 52 FPS on less power.
The Z2 Go isn’t a slouch, but it’s no beast either. It’s a step down from the Z1 Extreme in raw grunt, and I felt it in CPU-heavy titles. Battery life takes a hit, too. 55Wh sounds beefy, but at 25W “Performance” mode, I barely scraped 90 minutes. Plugged in, it charges fast via dual USB 4 ports (100W each), which is a godsend. Still, I kept it tethered more than I’d like for a “portable” device.
Here’s the kicker: Windows 11. It’s a clunky mess on a handheld. Booting up feels like firing up a laptop, swiping the lock screen, pecking in a PIN, and wrestling with a touchscreen keyboard that lingers too long. Lenovo’s Legion Space app tries to smooth things over, bundling your games into one hub, but it’s sluggish. Half my library showed blank tiles, and quick settings took ages to tweak mid-game. A SteamOS version is coming in May, and I’d wait for that. Windows feels like it’s fighting the hardware at every turn.
Priced at $729, the Legion Go S isn’t cheap. It’s a beautifully built handheld with a stellar screen and the best ergonomics I’ve tried, but the Z2 Go chip and Windows hold it back. For $50 less, the original Legion Go offers more power; for $500, the Steam Deck OLED runs circles around it in usability. I love the design; Lenovo’s onto something here, but this config feels like a warm-up act. If the SteamOS model delivers, it might just steal the show. For now, it’s a solid B effort in an A-grade shell.
