Lenovo Legion Go S Beats The Steam Deck Review

Tom's Guide

Tony is back with another handheld gaming PC review, but this one might seem familiar. The Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS is a true Steam Deck rival and arguably puts Windows 11 handheld to shame thanks to its snappy interface and strong performance. While its fans can get overly loud and its battery life isn’t great, SteamOS alone makes up for any shortcomings... and that's coming from Tony, a hardcore Steam Deck fan. Watch this full Buy or Skip review if you're not use whether it's the right portable gaming PC for you!

Transcript

00:00the lenovo legion go s is back and this time it's running steam os

00:06if you're getting a little deja vu it's because a couple months ago i reviewed the original legion

00:10go s windows 11 and told you to wait for this one now it's here so the question is was it worth the

00:16wait and more importantly is it a legit rival to the steam deck according to this steam deck user

00:21let's get into it what we're looking at is the first non-valve handheld to run steam's native

00:28operating system out of the box in case you didn't know valve steam parent company has been keeping

00:33steam os locked to its own hardware until now for me this is the reason to get legion go s

00:39steam os is designed for handhelds that means the whole experience from waking the device to

00:43launching a game is much faster smoother and more reliable to anything you get on windows 11. i've

00:49always said i wanted a handheld with the rog ally xs specs but with steam os instead of windows the

00:54go s is that device and it feels awesome to use let's dig a little deeper into performance right

01:00off the bat i can tell you that the performance difference alone between this and the windows

01:04version is night and day because of that it offers stronger performance than the windows 11 legion go s i

01:09reviewed however keep in mind that the latter runs on the weaker amd z2 go chip and has 16 gigs of ram

01:16for my testing i played doom the dark ages on the new legion go s at 1200p resolution medium graphical

01:22settings and fsr disabled the dark ages can run at around 25 frames per second with fsr enabled the

01:28fps jumps to 35 i got a smooth 56 to 61 frames per second at 800p resolution with fsr though the game

01:34doesn't look so good at that lower resolution the legion go s with windows 11 didn't do quite as well

01:40doom the dark ages runs at an abysmal 15 frames per second at 1200p and medium settings enabling

01:46frame generation bumped the fps count to 27 which is better but still not great i got a decent 45

01:52fps at 800p resolution with fsr on and graphical settings at low however the image quality looked

01:57muddy at those settings for our lab tests we ran the in-game benchmark tool for a handful of titles

02:03at maximum graphical settings assassin's creed mirage ran at 32 frames a second on the steam os legion go

02:08s that's not the 60 fps i would want to see but it's far better than the horrendous 21 fps we saw on

02:14the windows 11 model we saw similar results with games like dirt 5 and shadow of the tomb raider

02:18overall performance is snappy across the board on the steam os legion go s compared to the windows 11

02:23version side note i recently reviewed the switch 2 on this channel and while you should definitely

02:28check out that review i gotta be honest and say that the legion go s with c os has made me forget

02:32about the switch 2. but don't tell nintendo that oh no before we move on to recents to skip i want to

02:40take a moment of appreciation for the fact that legion go s comes with a sleek new dark colorway that's

02:45honestly way cooler than the original white model it still feels the same which is great since this

02:50handheld is just as ergonomic and premium feeling in this color it even looks similar to the steam deck

02:55so you know i'm not going to complain about that either while this machine has that lcd instead of

02:59an oled panel it still looks bright and colorful to my eyes the upcoming legion go 2 will have an

03:04oled panel so it would be nice the company updates the legion go s with a similar display

03:09and perhaps an amd z2 extreme chip but i'll get to that in a minute real quick if you're enjoying this

03:13breakdown hit that like button subscribe for more buy or skip videos on this channel we keep it honest

03:19cut through the hype and save you from buyer's remorse now let's talk about the reasons to skip

03:25the legion go s now here's the thing if you're already a happy steam deck owner i don't think

03:30you need this handheld yes it's newer and offers better performance but cmos makes every device feel

03:36like a steam deck and most people don't need to but to be clear if you've been waiting for a non-valve

03:42steam handheld this is still the one to get it's just that i don't know how many people that applies

03:46to the legion go s with steam west starts at 599 for a model packing the amd z2 gold chip 16 gigs of

03:53ram and 512 gigs of storage the model i reviewed retails for a heftier 829 and features the more

03:59powerful amd z1 extreme chip along with 32 gigs of ram and one terabyte of storage no matter which one

04:05you opt for you'll be paying a premium if you're price sensitive the base model might sound tempting

04:10but it really doesn't show off what this device can do and if you're going to be spending a steam

04:14deck oled amount of money you're going to compare it too hard and for me i might choose the 649

04:19steam deck oled that doesn't mean the steam os legion go s is necessarily overpriced but it does

04:24mean you need to really want a handle like this to justify that price and here's the final catch new

04:30chips are on the way amd z2 extreme is suspected to power a new wave of handhelds later this year

04:36like legion go 2 i mentioned before if any of those launch with steam os this legion was could

04:41feel outdated fast so if you're the performance-minded type who hates buyer's remorse you might want to

04:47wait a few months and see what else drops i know i told you to wait for this handheld a few months ago

04:51but things are different now that valve is allowing steam os on other handhelds not to mention the

04:56performance boost the z2 extreme promises but hey i'm looking at it as a positive there's a ton of

05:01innovation happening in the handheld gaming space and it's good to be spoiled for options keep in mind

05:06that there was no handheld market to speak of just five years ago things are changing fast so it's

05:11smart to slow down to see which current or upcoming machine is best for you so should you buy or skip

05:18the lenovo legion go s buy it if you've been waiting for a steam deck style experience with better hardware

05:24if you missed out on the deck entirely or if you want what i'm officially calling the best pc handheld of

05:292025 right now skip it if you already own a steam deck or if you want to see what the next generation

05:35of handhelds offers before buying in drop a comment are you switching to the legion go s or are you

05:40staying loyal to team steam deck if this episode of buy or skip helped you out give us a like hit that

05:45sub button and turn on notifications so you won't miss what we're reviewing next thanks for watching

05:49and i'll see you next time later

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