Lenovo Legion Go S

We left a relatively positive review of Lenovo's first attempt at a Steam Deck competitor. Sure, there were plenty of kinks for Lenovo to iron out in a potential sequel, but there was no shortage of ambition, and it's always easier to love a product that tries a lot of ideas and only gets some of them right. At least it's not boring.

With that in mind, Lenovo's Legion Go S is one of the strangest products we've reviewed in a long time. It's not a direct successor to the Legion Go, but a sort of off-shoot that drops many of the ambitious additions and modifications Lenovo had spent so much R&D cash on introducing, and with a less powerful SoC too.

Okay, so let's take a step back. The Legion Go S has the distinction of being the first non-Valve handheld to be released with SteamOS. But that's not this one. The SteamOS variant will only emerge from hiding in May, and this one is a more traditional Windows-based alternative. This means it competes directly with Asus' ROG Ally, and even Lenovo's own original Legion Go. It will set you back around £600 for the 512GB/16GB RAM version, and you can get an MSI Claw for that, a Z1 Extreme-equipped ROG Ally for that, or the aforementioned Legion Go. So, why is it so expensive?

Now that's a really, really hard question to answer because the Legion Go S doesn't have the same Z1 Extreme as the other products above. Instead, it's equipped with a Z2 Go chip custom-made for the Legion Go S. It's part of the new Z2 family from AMD and we'll see expanded versions of it in future handhelds, but this downgraded version is limited to four cores, eight threads, and an RDNA 2 GPU with 12 cores. This is combined with a 55Whr battery, which means that even with either equal or even slightly worse performance than the previous generation of Windows handhelds, the Legion Go S lasts four hours, or maybe five, which is neither impressive nor makes much sense. Maybe it's because these are Zen 3 cores instead of the Zen 4 cores you get in the Z1 Extreme, which you can get in a Legion Go that's two years old, has Joy-Con-like detachable controllers, and costs the same. Sigh.

That's not to say the Legion Go S is a train wreck in every way. The hardware is simpler, but also more ergonomic. It's pretty sweet to hold, no doubt about it, with rounded corners, solid materials, and good build quality all round. It can charge at 100W, which means it's back up and running faster than almost any other competitor, the new front speakers work far better, and the more efficient cooling system not only does wonders for hand temperature under pressure, but produces far less noise too.

The new display is also passable, if not bordering on impressive. It's a 1920x1200 IPS display, which is a downgrade from Legion Go's 2560x1600, but there's VRR between 48-120Hz and a colour calibration that makes everything look a little crisper.

But we keep coming back to the same starting point. This Windows version of the Lenovo Legion Go S performs worse in virtually every test we could muster compared to both the Steam Deck OLED (which is also a tad more expensive), ROG Ally, and the original Z1 Extreme-equipped Legion Go. We're talking between 10% and 30% in some respects, but you're paying pretty much the same here and you're also getting worse battery life in the package. Whether it was Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, or Forza Horizon 5 - the result for us has been the same, and that's also regardless of whether you set an artificial TDP or have the device set to power.

If the Legion Go S had been positioned as a budget-friendly alternative we wouldn't have as many frustrations, because you get 85% of the same experience. But it's just as expensive, and that's unacceptable. Maybe the SteamOS variant will change things, but for now you should steer clear of this version.