Lenovo Legion Go S Official: $499 Buys The First Authorized Third-party Steamos Handheld

Lenovo is trying an experiment. In May, it will officially spell nan very first institution extracurricular of Valve to alloy a handheld gaming PC pinch nan Steam Deck’s wonderfully pick-up-and-play SteamOS alternatively of Microsoft Windows. And astatine $499, it’ll beryllium a existent Steam Deck rival, joining it arsenic 1 of nan lower-priced PC handhelds you tin buy.

That handheld will beryllium nan 1.6-pound Lenovo Legion Go S, a caller and improved type of nan company’s eight-inch handheld that ditches nan Nintendo Switch-like detachable gamepads and kickstand for a lighter and overmuch accepted design, pinch a sculpted grip that felt supremely comfortable successful my hands.

It’ll too beryllium 1 of nan less handhelds connected nan marketplace to relationship a 120Hz adaptable refresh title aboveground — a highly desirable characteristic that lets low-power handheld gameplay consciousness smooth, moreover if it’s not generating tons of frames. That aboveground will beryllium small successful solution astatine 1920 x 1200, too, and characteristic a hopefully power-sipping caller AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip. (It’s a Lenovo-exclusive chip, by nan way.)

In different words, it mightiness reside each awesome title I had successful my Legion Go review, while additionally adding nosy configurable RGB lighting astir nan joysticks, a somewhat larger 55Wh battery, a brace of levers to trim nan propulsion of nan triggers, and a small obtrusive touchpad, too, while retaining nan dual USB 4 ports.

But Lenovo isn’t going each successful connected SteamOS. Not only will it hedge its bets by shipping a Windows type of nan Legion Go S arsenic bully but it’ll too alloy pinch Windows this period — 4 months up of nan SteamOS models. The Windows exemplary is white:

It’s not for illustration nan SteamOS exemplary is caller now anyhow. Valve codesigners Lawrence nan and Pierre-Loup Griffais show maine they’ve only been moving pinch Lenovo for a mates of months, and nan integration isn’t alternatively done. The caller touchpad, gyroscope, and immoderate RGB lighting and TDP configuration options are among nan things connected their to-do list.

But nan Windows type shipping successful January will costs $729.99, pinch 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. In May, nan existent investigation will statesman erstwhile gamers tin premier betwixt a $499.99 SteamOS type pinch 16GB / 512GB, a $599.99 Windows type pinch 16GB / 1TB, aliases nan Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED astatine $399 and $549, respectively.

And it does sound for illustration location will beryllium 1 important logic to premier nan Steam Deck complete nan Legion Go S and vice versa, because AMD’s Z2 Go is simply a different chip. While nan Z2 Go announced yesterday sheds cores and GPU generations to beryllium somewhat overmuch akin to nan Steam Deck’s semi-custom Aerith and / aliases Sephiroth parts, we noted that it targets higher powerfulness levels, and Legion Go merchandise caput Alex Zhu confirms to maine that nan Legion Go S is aimed astatine 20-watt performance, 30-watt, perchance moreover 40-watt configurable performance, which will apt relationship higher capacity (and small artillery life) than nan 15-watt-and-below Steam Deck’s chip.

Zhu says Lenovo is targeting betwixt 2 and 2.5 hours of artillery life successful demanding dense games — which lines up pinch nan basal mathematics of dividing a 55 watt-hour artillery by 20 watts, assuming nan remainder of nan strategy doesn’t eat up a batch more. Versions pinch AMD’s existing Z1 Extreme spot will too beryllium disposable successful immoderate markets. All Legion Go S tin caller full-length M.2 2280 coagulated authorities drives.

BTW, Valve isn’t keeping cardinal Steam Deck features for illustration precompiled shaders to itself, aliases point else, for that matter. nan and Griffais opportunity it will beryllium 1 SteamOS, and nan Legion Go S and immoderate early SteamOS devices will get nan aforesaid updates arsenic nan Deck, minus hardware-specific tweaks.

Valve tells maine Lenovo is presently its only partner for a SteamOS instrumentality — location are nary different third-party SteamOS devices presently successful nan works. But Griffais hints that Valve is adjacent to publically releasing a caller beta of its SteamOS that conscionable mightiness perchance commencement moving connected different handhelds arsenic well. (Valve antecedently confirmed to america that it was building toward immoderate level of support for nan Asus ROG Ally successful SteamOS arsenic well.)

And it’s vaguely imaginable that SteamOS beta could get earlier nan SteamOS Legion Go S — Valve says it’s slated to alloy sometime aft March.

But nan existent dream is to propulsion a PC handheld retired of a instrumentality and personification it conscionable work, nan measurement a Nintendo Switch works, not to shoehorn an operating strategy connected it afterward, nary matter really bully nan result. That’s why Lenovo is moving pinch Valve: Zhu agrees that SteamOS has nan champion out-of-box experience. But, he says, Windows offers a afloat ecosystem of gaming and productivity that nan institution believes its customers still want.

Zhu agrees that SteamOS is an investigation for Lenovo and says it’ll look astatine nan feedback and momentum earlier making its adjacent move. Speaking of what’s next, Lenovo is too building a larger Legion Go 2 pinch detachable controllers and an 8.8-inch OLED screen, and it brought prototypes of that information to CES:

Zhu tells maine Lenovo doesn’t personification “any circumstantial plans” to put SteamOS connected nan larger Legion Go, conscionable Windows — but perchance it depends connected what customers bargain successful May.

Meanwhile, Valve is still looking up to a early type of its ain Steam Deck, saying that partnering pinch companies for illustration Lenovo hasn’t reduced nan desire to build its own. But AMD’s Z2 isn’t nan “leap” that Valve’s been waiting for, Griffais tells The Verge. There won’t beryllium a Z2 Steam Deck.