A leaked image of the new Lenovo Legion Go. | Image via Evan Blass
Earlier today, Evan Blass revealed an unannounced Lenovo Legion Go S handheld gaming PC with an extremely intriguing twist: a Steam button that suggests it could be the first third-party SteamOS handheld, and thus the first true competitor to the Steam Deck.
But that handheld gaming PC apparently won’t be alone: Blass just provided The Verge with these images of a new, larger Lenovo Legion Go as well.
As you can see, this Legion Go plans to keep the detachable Joy-Con like gamepads and kickstand that were the single most distinctive features of the original — and they’ll keep the “FPS mode” where you can plop one of those controllers on a disc-shaped skate and use it like a vertical mouse.
Image via Evan Blass
But one model may also swap out the Legion Go’s 8.8-inch IPS LCD screen for one with an OLED panel at the same size, according to the original filenames of these images. That should mean improved colors and deeper blacks, and potentially improved response times.
We don’t have any specs or marketing claims yet, though, like the all-important battery life size. Nor have we gotten a glimpse of the ports on this system. There is an AMD Z2 Extreme chip coming that could likely be the core of this handheld, but we don’t yet know.
Image via Evan Blass
In my review of the original Legion Go, I was mixed on the detachable controllers with their sharp-ish edges and loads of extra mouse buttons that made them awkward to hold. These one seem to be far more smoothly sculpted, though, with revised mouse buttons on the right detachable pad, and a cover you can place over the mounting rail so the copper charging pins don’t poke your palm.
The images we’ve seen do not feature a Steam button, so it’s quite likely Lenovo is still hedging its bets with Windows in addition to SteamOS.
But we are much more confident in our prediction that the smaller Lenovo Legion Go S will be a SteamOS handheld. Blass showed me filenames that suggest the S will be “powered by” Steam, mirroring Valve’s new branding guidelines for “Powered by SteamOS” devices.
Valve defines “Powered by SteamOS” as “hardware running the SteamOS operating system, implemented in close collaboration with Valve.”
We’ve reached out to Valve and Lenovo to hopefully learn more.
