Lenovo Legion Go Release date: Price, Specifications, Availability

Lenovo Legion Go Release date: Since Valve released the Steam Deck in 2022 and Asus introduced the ROG Ally, the market for handheld gaming PCs has gained considerable momentum (no pun intended). Now, Lenovo’s new Legion Go is truly stirring things up.

Lenovo Legion Go Release date

As stated in our hands-on review, this is without a doubt one of the most thrilling devices in its category. A large 8.8-inch display, detachable controllers, and other features distinguish the Legion Go from the competition. If you wish to learn everything there is to know about the Legion Go, including its price, release date, and specifications, you have come to the correct place.

Costs and Availability

A Lenovo Legion Go being played with detachable controllers on a table.

The Lenovo Legion Go was announced at IFA 2023 on September 1, and it will be available for purchase in October. It will begin at $700, but it is unclear what the primary configuration will entail. Based on the fact that these are the minimum specifications specified on Lenovo’s spec sheet, it will likely come with a standard AMD Ryzen Z1 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. As we saw with the Asus ROG Ally, it is conceivable that Lenovo will launch a higher-end Z1 Extreme model first, followed by cheaper models.

Specs

What you must know concerning the Lenovo Legion Go

If you are well-versed in the world of technology, you can likely deduce from the table of specifications what makes the Lenovo Legion Go unique. Regardless, let’s investigate why this could be one of the best alternatives to Steam Deck.

A massive, colourful display

Angled front view of the Lenovo Legion Go portable, displaying a pink and blue desktop background.

The display is the first feature we wish to highlight, as it currently outperforms the majority of competitors in this market. The 8.8-inch display is significantly larger than the 7-inch displays on the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally. This makes the device larger and heavier, but the viewing experience is significantly more immersive, and it’s also helpful if you want to play with the controllers detached and the screen further away.

That is not all, however. The Quad HD+ resolution (2560×1600) makes this display even sharper than the Asus ROG Ally, which already has a higher resolution than the Steam Deck. It claims to cover 97% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, which is the highest colour coverage we’ve seen on one of these devices. The Asus ROG Ally only supports 100% of sRGB, which typically corresponds to approximately 80% of DCI-P3.

Overall, the viewing experience here should be far superior to that of all the major competitors, though you’ll have to press the CPU and GPU harder to make full use of it.

Separated controllers+

Although devices such as the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally were inspired by the Nintendo Switch, neither of them allow you to decouple the controllers from the console. This is altered by Legion Go. To separate the controller from the primary body, depress a button on the back of the controller and slide it down slightly.

This allows you to choose how to play your games. Since the primary module has a kickstand, you can remove the controllers and play directly on the device’s screen, which is ideal for playing on an aeroplane, for instance. The controllers’ rechargeable batteries are charged when the controllers are connected to the console, so charging should not be an issue.

In FPS mode

A Lenovo Legion Go with detachable controllers and the right controller in mouse mode

Detachable controllers are already a huge deal, but the Legion Go’s FPS mode is an even bigger deal. The right controller conceals a few mysteries, including an optical mouse sensor on its underside, similar to the IR camera on the right Joy-Con for the Nintendo Switch. This sensor is almost identical to a mouse’s, allowing you to play first-person games more competitively than with the Steam Deck or ROG Ally.

When mouse mode is enabled and the controller is placed on the included stand, it can be used as a mouse, with dedicated mouse buttons for firing and other actions on the side of the controller. The Steam Deck did something comparable with its touchpads, but this is equivalent to using a genuine mouse, which is superior for the vast majority of individuals. Obviously, a workstation is required for this to be viable.

A touchscreen

Additionally, the right controller has a touchpad that can be used to navigate Windows 11 with greater ease. There is even a mouse wheel on the rear of the controller for scrolling pages and lists, making the experience significantly more intuitive than using traditional console controllers.

In contrast to the Steam Deck, there is only one touchpad here, and it is positioned lower to prevent the device from becoming wider. You should only use it for Windows 11 navigation and not for gaming.

AMD Ryzen Z1 chipsets

The Asus ROG Ally was the first device to be introduced with the AMD Ryzen Z1 series processors. The Lenovo Legion Go is the second device to be announced with these processors. As long as you’re reasonable, you should anticipate generally excellent gaming performance with an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor or higher. This will not compete with a dedicated gaming laptop, but it should be able to run nearly all modern titles with minor graphics adjustments.

Utilising M.2 2242 SSDs

While the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally appeared to establish a standard for M.2 2230 SSDs, which have since become more prevalent, the Lenovo Legion Go uses the less conventional M.2 2242 SSD size. Since the best SSDs for the Steam Deck are not compatible, it may be more difficult to locate SSD upgrades in the future if you wish to upgrade the storage.