We is perhaps solely weeks away from the primary third-party handheld gaming PC working the Steam Deck OS hitting the cabinets. Two variations of the Lenovo Legion Go S working SteamOS have appeared on Greatest Purchase for pre-order, suggesting a late-Might launch date, though that hasn’t but been confirmed by Lenovo itself.
Throughout our personal Legion Go S hands-on on the CES commerce present in January, we have been impressed by how effectively this third-party handheld captured the spirit of the unique Steam Deck. With specs set to outdo the Valve OG to turn into among the best handheld gaming PCs you should purchase, avid gamers might effectively select to make this Lenovo handheld their number-one possibility as soon as it launches.
Two variations of the Legion Go S have appeared on Greatest Purchase for pre-order. The cheaper model, with the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go APU, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD, is on the market to buy for $549.99. That matches the identical worth because the 512GB Steam Deck OLED, gaining you a extra highly effective APU than the unique Deck, though with an inferior LCD display with a 120Hz refresh price.
In the meantime, a beefed-up model of the Legion Go S is on the market for $749.99, upgrading to the identical AMD Ryzen Z1 Excessive APU used within the Asus ROG Ally X. It additionally comes with 32GB of RAM (versus the ROG Ally X’s 24GB and Steam Deck OLED’s 16GB) and a 1TB SSD, costing simply $50 lower than the Asus mannequin.
The actual win for these handhelds, nevertheless, isn’t the parts – it’s the software program. Their use of SteamOS signifies that all the Valve ecosystem is available to avid gamers from the second of buy, making them a a lot simpler prospect to make use of than Home windows-only choices such because the Asus ROG Ally X. The uplift in specs over the Steam Deck, in the meantime, ought to hopefully result in higher efficiency in probably the most demanding current releases.
Whereas Lenovo has already launched a Home windows model of the Legion Go S, it hasn’t formally introduced a launch date for these SteamOS fashions, that means that the Might 25, 2025 date proven on Greatest Purchase may very well be topic to vary. Both method, we’ll be trying to check their efficiency for ourselves as soon as they launch to see simply how they evaluate to the Steam Deck for avid gamers.
Till then, take a look at our Steam Deck OLED assessment to see why Valve’s handheld continues to be your best option for avid gamers, thanks (partially) to the benefit of use of the SteamOS platform.
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