In the ever-changing race for being the best in portable gaming PC, Lenovo’s Legion Go was one of the few that had been introduced to he market that perhaps someone could take on the Steam Deck. So, when their affordable alternative, the Legion Go S, was announced, perhaps this one could settle the debate of whose the best in the business.
And I reckon, the team from Beijing has got this one.
Review Unit Spec
- CPU: Ryzen Z2 Go Processor
- RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X-6400MT/s (Soldered)
- 512 GB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe Gen4 TLC
- Graphics: AMD Radeon Graphics IGPU (8GB)
- Battery: 3 Cell Rechargeable Li-ion 55.5Wh
- Screen: 8″ 120Hz WUXGA (1920 x 1200), IPS with Glare, Touch, 100% sRGB,
- OS: Windows 11
- PRICE: 3,299 MYR SRP
Build Quality
What you’ll get to hold onto when this handheld PC falls into your hands is the fact that the device is quite light, clocking in at around 790g only. Which is astonishing considering how much power this thing has in running the current crop of games.
A bit heavier and wider than a Nintendo Switch, of course, but holding it for the usual sessions of an hour or two doesn’t strain the hands, or even heat them as the vents are on the top left, making the palms section of the hands not exposed to the heat dangers at all.
As for its size, it doesn’t fit in a small messenger bag for easy carry, but it can be neatly tucked within a backpack that has a laptop pouch without issue.
The buttons of the handheld feel alright to play around with. With the hall effect, sticks really feel solid, and its controller layout already being in the Xbox configuration that many players would immediately become accustomed to at this point, then I see their vision in making it this way.
Although I feel the track pad for mouse controls should be a bit bigger for accurate tracking, that’s just me and my fingers not reaching it well during a play session.
Port side, we have two USB4 Type-C connectors that do so much work in these slots. Not only is it a USB hub, but also the DisplayPort location for exporting its 1920×1080 screen to a monitor or TV and the port for its fast-charging that goes upwards to 65W charging.
A solid showing in the build department.
Software
One advantage (or disadvantage for some) for my Legion Go S unit is that it runs on Windows 11, which also means it can run other software that is “work-related” like Discord or the various Adobe programs, since its spec is quite mighty for a portable console. It also means that stuff like EASY anti-cheat or Riot’s Vanguard could be enabled, making the two most popular games in the world, Fortnite and Valorant, respectively, able to play on this machine, unlike Valve’s Linux-based one.
Besides that, the Legion Arena app does the job of checking the temperature, fan speed and such, and would utilise the extra buttons on the back via macros into stuff like screencapping game images and such. It’s part of the Legion family already, so this app being intuitive with this portable gaming design is quite neat.
Gameplay Performance
The Legion GoS is using the RDNA 2 Zen 3 architecture, which, combined with the Z2 Go processor, makes it as close to consoles, specifically one that ends with S, in terms of power, with 8GB of VRAM to play with. And that can bring you to some of the demanding games at around its 1080P Resolution (or even 900P if you want to extract the most out of it).
Besides Deltarune (which has a locked 30fps cap), all the games tested had no issues running at 60fps on Medium or Low settings. Here is my list of games tested:
- Cyberpunk 2077 (Update 2.2)
- Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025)
- Deltarune
- Stellar Blade PC
- GTA V (Current Gen Edition)
- Conquest Dark
- #Drive Rally
Though in some cases, since this is playing on an Integrated Graphics Card, some games refuse to even boot up, for example, Le Mans Ultimate needs a powerful enough GPU (a quirk from its olden days known as rFactor), and it somehow thinks it’s not enough. But these cases are rare, as most games would run it without issues.
Battery life for the Legion Go S is quite good. Its idling on the PC desktop could do 5 hours, much like how a normal Gaming Laptop would do and on playing Cyberpunk, from 100% to needing a charge would take around 2 – 3 hours of gaming to drain the battery, which is quite a feat considering the processing power for an Open World game.
And as for our “watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans at 1080P 50FPS” test, it did well by clocking in around 4 hours of continuous watching before needing a charge.
Verdict
The Lenovo Legion Go S is quite a nifty machine that packs the power of those bulky gaming laptops and puts it into this machine that does its job well, be it video gaming, video watching or heck, even video editing, if it wanted to.
A testament to how incredible this portable PC gaming device market has been, and what a neat little machine this is.
Review Unit provided by Lenovo
Lenovo Legion GO S
A nifty machine that packs the power of those bulky gaming laptops and puts it into this machine that does its job well.
- Hardware 9
- Value 8.5
- Gaming Performance 8