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Lenovo Legion Go S Handheld Review
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Jun 2, 2025
In Tony's Lenovo Legion Go S review, he'll break down everything you need to know about the latest Windows 11 handheld to hit the market. It serves as a more portable version of the Lenovo Legion Go, ditching detachable controllers for a more streamlined ergonomic design. It also features a sharp 8-inch LCD display and decent battery life. While Lenovo Legion Go S has plenty of strong attributes, it’s not perfect. In this video, check out Tony's reasons to buy and reasons to skip Lenovo’s latest handheld, as well as some caveats to consider before buying.
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The Lenovo Legion Go S is a smaller, more ergonomic, and more affordable alternative
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to the original Legion Go. This new handheld features an 8-inch display, an updated game
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launcher, and the new AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip. At $729, it's worth buying now or should you wait
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for the upcoming SteamOS version or get the model with the more powerful Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip
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The Lenovo Legion Go S isn't here to replace the Lenovo Legion Go. Instead
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it serves as a smaller more portable option the lenovo legion go s now has rounded textured grips
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that make it easier to hold it digits to the tangible controllers found on the original legion
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go in favor of unibody design combine that with the smaller size and you get a smaller machine
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that's easier to hold for longer periods compared to the switch like legion go which can become
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uncomfortable to hold after 10 minutes of gaming despite slimming down its 8 inch lc display is
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still larger than rivals like the asus rg ally and steenbeck oled the hellish landscapes of doom
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Eternal and neon-drenched streets of Cyberpunk 2077 come to life in glorious detail
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The larger display can help games feel more immersive. But while its 1200 native P resolution looks sharp for most modern games
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you'll probably need to drop them down to 720p to run smoothly. Look at the frame rate, bro
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To be fair, this is Cyberpunk. The game kind of struggles to run well on even more powerful machines
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so we can't throw that completely on the Legion Go-West. Trigger locks for the L2 and R2 are great for first-burn shooters
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that require fast inputs, while the Ronda D-pad is perfect for fighting games
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The og sticks and face buttons are also plain responsive and have an eight-trimestral design similar to the Xbox
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The L2 and R2 buttons have trigger locks that let you set their actuation points
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For instance, you want a shorter travel distance when playing first-minute shooters like Doom
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Conversely, you want a longer travel distance when playing racing games like Dirt 5
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It running at 20 frames so it obviously not well But despite that it still does feel good to race around If you like racing games you really going to enjoy this Like other handhelds you also find two programmable back buttons
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placed right where your middle fingers rest, making them easy to use. Some handhelds I've tested, such as the original Steam Deck, can run loud and hot
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Thankfully, this isn't the case with the Lenovo Legion Go S. During normal gameplay, I hardly noticed the fans running
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The only time I ever heard them is when the system was downloading games or installing updates
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Even then, the fans produced a low hump, making it one of the quietest handhelds I've ever reviewed
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Similarly, Legion Go S doesn't get very hot with its Senate gameplay. In our heat test, Legion Go S gets warmest around the center of the back, reaching 89 degrees Fahrenheit
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Considering how your fingers don't naturally rest there, you won't have to worry about that
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To launch into your favorite games quickly, there's the built-in Legion Go Game Space Launcher
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which is as intuitive to use as ever. You can connect to several gaming services
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like Xbox, Epic Games, Steam, and more. You can even purchase games
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from their respective storefronts, right from Legion Space. As before, the settings menu features
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several customization options, including setting the device's performance mode, display resolution, refresh rate, and controller mapping
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You can also customize the lighting effects, view screenshots through Snap, check download status for games, and more
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The quick settings menu beside the display's right-hand side gives you access to these same features. You can find links for the Legion Go S and all the other
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handhelds I've shared so far, link below. Now let's get into the cons. While it looks and feels good
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in hand, this Windows 11 powered configuration is underwhelming. Design wise, the Lenovo Legion Go
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S is a pretty solid machine. Unfortunately, under the hood, its underwhelming performance is both
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expected and disappointing, especially at this price. Currently, the Lenovo Legion Go S is only
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with the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage Performance the Ryzen Z2 Go chip sits between the AMD Ryzen Z1 and ryzen z1 extreme but even knowing that i was still disappointed with the legion go s overall
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gaming performance doom maternal which is one of the most highly optimized games available ran at
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a brutal 25 frames per second at native resolution and medium graphical settings it was only after
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dropping the resolution to 800p or 720p at 16 by 10 aspect ratio and set the graphical settings to
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low that the game started running at a more respectable 45 frames a second nice blood there
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cyber punch rs 77 ran at an abysmal 10 to 15 frames a second in the steam bed graphical settings
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which exists purely for handheld pcs as with dual maternal act to lower the resolution to 720p
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and set graphical settings to low to get between 25 to 33 frames a second which is still not great
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using a game's built-in benchmark tools at 720p and medium graphical settings with the device set
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to performance mode the lenovo legion go as struggle to run most games over 32 frames per
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second a science screen mirage is one of the few examples where lenovo's handheld did well
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even matching its competitors if you've seen any of my other handheld reviews you'll know what i'm
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about to say next to put it shortly windows 11 sucks for gaming handhelds the legion space works
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perfectly with controller inputs and allows you to jump into your game within a few clicks the rest
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of windows 11 isn't designed for controller inputs without a mouse or keyboard hooked up
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you're forced to use touch controls, which even on large 8-inch display can be difficult and
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frustrating. Like the original Legion Go, the Legion Go S also has a touchpad, which can be
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used as a mouse, but it's not exactly a seamless experience for navigating your desktop since the
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touchpad is so small. Yeah, it's not that great. While Windows 11 offers the versatility to do more
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than just play games, it isn't ideal for handhelds. Besides its funkiness on touchscreens, we find
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that it also contributes to slowing down gaming performance on less than powerful handhelds
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which you can also read about in our articles linked below For anyone who just wants to play their favorite games without stealing with Windows 11 I recommend waiting for the inevitable steam west version which releases sometime in spring with a starting price of 499 speaking of pricing if you don mind windows 11 handhelds and are
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willing to pay a bit more the original asus rog ally with the z1 extreme can easily be found for
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under 700 and offers better performance despite being a few years old now and though it costs 899
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The MSI Claw 8 AI offers even better performance, longer battery life, and a similar 16 by 10 8-inch display
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Finally, if you don't want to wait for the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S to release
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it might be time for you to jump on the Steam Deck Hike Train. The 1TB $650 bottle is the best handheld for PC gaming for most folks
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and it's very well optimized. This configuration of the Lenovo Legion Go S
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currently the only one available, is difficult to recommend. Though I like its more ergonomic design and vivid 8-inch display
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its lackluster performance and Windows 11 headaches make it a difficult console to recommend
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especially for $729. But we shouldn't completely dismiss the Lenovo Legion OS
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as upcoming versions could potentially make it a true rival to the Steam Deck. Not only will the
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SteamOS version of the system have the best handheld operating system, but it'll also have
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generous $500 starting price. As for the Windows 11 version, Lenovo will offer a model for a similar
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starting price, along with configuration featuring the more powerful Ryzen Z1 extreme chip that
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could justify a higher price. So those are my thoughts on the Lenovo Legion Go S
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but I'd love to hear what your thoughts are down in the comments below. Follow us everywhere at Tom's Guy
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and you can follow me for more reviews. I've been Tony Polanco and I'll see you around
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Later. Like imagine if the train was actually running
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Yeah. The train just went by. It said that that was in front of us. Oh, man. Yeah, but we can't time it
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It'd be nice. All right, here we go
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