Lenovo Legion Go 2 vs ROG Xbox Ally

So first came the MSI Claw A8, second came the Xbox ROG Ally and now the third one's come to play

This is the Lenovo Legion GO 2 and there are some pretty tasty upgrades to talk about here

Let's get into it. So the three big upgrades come in the screen, the design of it and also what's

happening internally as well. So starting up front you've got a 1200p OLED display which is running

at 144Hz. Technically this is a lower resolution than the previous Legion Go, but as you started

to realise, the handheld chips in this aren't really that good at being able to render resolutions

that high. And the games already look really hella pretty enough on a 200p OLED display like this

Backing it up is the Ryzen Z2 Extreme chipset with 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM, which is running at

8,000 megahertz. This is ensuring super zippy multitasking and it means you're

not necessarily going to get bogged down by trying to run complex games like Doom

the Dark Ages right here. So of course the main showpiece of the Legion go to is

the detachable controllers. Essentially what happens when a Windows gaming handheld gets a little bit busy in the bedroom with a Nintendo switch and

honestly given how thick this device is that's actually warmly welcomed because

this is a hefty machine, and with good reason because there are some significant upgrades

happening under the hood here. For starters, you have the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chipset

As you've seen from when I've been testing other handhelds supporting this chip, this

is meaning drastically better performance and also massively improved AI gaming performance as well with the likes of AMD FSR providing super smooth frame rates like this

with resolution scaling and even a little bit of frame generation on the side

The controls have been given a nice ergonomic upgrade as well. This reminds me a lot of the ROG Xbox Ally

in terms of it feeling a lot more like a controller grip in the hand

So this is so much more comfortable than when you kind of got controller grips that have like the more flatter profile of the previous

Legion Go and then of course if you are playing FPS titles this is where this comes in. So I've

used this previously on the Legion Go 1 and it's one of those features that can be quite easily

forgotten because you're mainly playing with like the control sticks and you don't really think

about what else it could do. However here especially when you've got a frame rate which is high enough

that you could do some pretty good competitive first-person shooting. This could give you like a really good competitive advantage

over other people playing on controllers. So of course, what this all means with thicker ergonomic controllers

the thicker side profile of the handheld, is it's not necessarily as portable as other handhelds that you can get out there

So for example, the MSI Claw A8 is definitely a lot thinner

and it's definitely a lot lighter than this as well. But also you kind of got to think about that trade-off

between portability and good handheld performance and ergonomics. It's got to feel comfortable to play for hours and hours and hours on end

Of course, when you're snapping the controllers off, you need to be able to use the kickstand on the back of the display

And this one unfolds to quite a dramatic angle around about 110 degrees

And what it essentially means is you can just rest it down take the controllers off and play to your heart content Flanking the side of this display you got your controller pads as well So these detach you got your face buttons you got your og sticks

Everything's in the same place as you'd expect. It's a very familiar design. You've got your trackpad, you've got macro buttons as well for programming different sets

Up on the top, you've got the main exhaust vent, you've got volume buttons, you've got the power switch. On the bottom, you've got a USB-C, which does support AR glasses

and you've got the microSD card slot for expanding that storage. In the hand, it's a hefty device at 920 grams

Basically, nearly a kilogram. Oh yeah, definitely. Like, you can just do some bicep curls

Feels good. For a while, Lenovo is throwing everything in the kitchen sink at this

with the Ryzen Z2 Extreme chipset, 32 gigs of DDR5 RAM, super fast PCIe Gen 4 SSD

It's just one problem. This is still running Windows 11. and what I saw from the performance overhead that was afforded to me with the Xbox ROG Li

really sort of like blocking out the background tasks of Windows 11 desktop mode

and just focusing on the Xbox user experience. I can already tell you that it's going to be a little bit compromised

by running all the background tasks of Windows 11 in the background of this

And also with it being Windows 11, you're getting all of your standard

It's just a bit awkward on an 8.8 touchscreen. don't go wrong 8.8 it's definitely a lot better than like the seven inches that I've tried in the

past but in terms of like navigating around it the Xbox UI is definitely always going to be way better

in terms of when the Xbox UI is coming I know at the moment it's exclusive to the Asus ROG Xbox

Ally but I've also been told it should be coming to other Windows handheld devices in 2026 no

specific date yet but watch this space it should really lift the roof on what frame rates this can achieve because at the moment you already getting pretty good frame rates so for example this

is running at 1080p you've got settings turned up to a range of medium and high you've got fsr on as

well and on here you're getting a pretty damn rock solid 60 frames a second that cpu is definitely

working overtime to kind of overcome Windows 11 running in the background to keep this running as

smoothly as it is. So should you buy this particular handheld? Well it comes down to what your

preference is in terms of what key features come from handhelds like this. Do you want the prettiest

screen on a handheld? Get this one. Do you want more versatility in the way that you play games

with your handheld? Get this one. There's so many different ways that the Legion go to edges ahead

of other handhelds in this space, but there's just an Xbox ROG Li X problem in the way in terms of

what performance that can give you versus this. Essentially, it can have the same specs. It does

Like, it says it on the card and everything, but without that software tailor-made for gaming

handhelds, it's going to be that little bit hamstrung compared to what ASUS can do. So

we can do is sit and wait for the Xbox UI to finally come to this handheld or maybe even put

SteamOS on it who knows but let me know what you think would you guys get the Legion go to

go ahead and let me know in the comments and for more gaming handheld content go and subscribe to

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I've been Jason England this has been the Legion go to and I'll talk to you guys soon peace