During an official Lenovo Legion Go S and Legion Go 2 Q&A, Senior Community Manager for Lenovo Legion, Ben Green, and Senior Product Manager for Legion Devices, “but mainly focused on the handhelds for North America,” Ben Meyers, answered questions about these upcoming gaming handhelds.
If you didn’t already know, Lenovo unveiled the Legion Go S during CES 2025, and revealed that there will be both a white Windows and a Nebula Violet (dark purple) SteamOS version of this upcoming handheld. The device variants will be available with different processors. Meanwhile, Lenovo also showed off a prototype for the Legion Go 2, the company’s next-gen gaming handheld.
Some helpful clarifications were discussed during the Lenovo Legion Q&A. Here’s a quick breakdown of the seven most important things they discussed about the Legion Go S and Legion Go 2.
1. Lenovo has added VRR, native landscape, and more based on customer feedback
Near the start of the Q&A, Meyers explained that he has been really focused on getting feedback on the original Legion Go “from Reddit, from Twitch, from the Lenovo community forums, from everywhere we can possibly get it into the backend team” so as to make the best improvements possible for these new devices. The Legion Go 2 prototype even has a fingerprinter reader on top, which the original handheld did not have.
“Native landscape display was a big thing,” Meyers said. “All of the new devices that are coming out are all native landscape. They all have VRR. We did downgrade the resolution a little bit, but that was all driven primarily by community feedback as well as people who wanted better performance and questioned why we included the QHD resolution, so I think this is going to be the sweet spot.”
I know the lack of VRR (variable refresh rate) was especially disappointing for me in the original handheld. After all, rival devices like ASUS ROG Ally, do support VRR, which helps the handheld offer better motion clarity and performance during gaming sessions. So, I’m happy to hear this has been added.
2. The new Z2 Go chip offers some tradeoffs and the Z2 Extreme is far more powerful
While talking about the Legion Go S, Meyers clarified that the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go custom silicon offers better power consumption than the Z1 Extreme option, but isn’t as powerful as the Z1 Extreme. As a reminder, the Z1 Extreme is the chip that is currently used in the original Legion Go and ROG Ally.
Now, the Legion Go 2 prototype has the new AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, and that obviously means that the Legion Go S is not as powerful as this next-gen handheld, but it looks like battery life will be better. According to Meyers, they wanted to introduce the custom Z2 Go Legion Go S as a less expensive option, so people can choose a handheld and price range that fits them best.
Talking specifically about the Legion Go 2, Meyers explained that he’s “expecting the Z2 Extreme to be a massive performance increase over everything else that’s out there.” The Z1 Extreme was already pretty impressive. I can’t wait to check out the Z2 Extreme handhelds when they become available.
3. The Legion Go 2 is expected to release this year
After being asked when the Legion Go 2 will launch, Green stated, “I don’t think we have a date timeframe to release with you just yet, but just sometime this year is my understanding.” Meyers then chipped in and said, “Yeah, as humanly possible. Once the quality is there as well.”
It looks like Lenovo wants to stagger the releases of these three devices throughout the year. My guess is that if the Legion Go 2 stays on track for a 2025 launch, we’ll see it on store shelves either this summer or right before the holidays.
4. Lenovo hopes to get Legion Go updates streamlined through AMD
If you own a Legion Go already, then you know getting updates to the handheld hasn’t been the smoothest or most frequent thing. Thankfully, it looks like Lenovo is aware of this and wants to improve.
“I can’t say too much on all of this,” Meyers clarified, “but what I will tell you is we are obviously very aware of how big of a priority this is and needs to be. There are certain things that are going on in the global social-political atmosphere that are imposing significant limitations on certain things that we can and can’t do. Everything we can do, we are doing… We’ve had multiple conversations around driver support, etc. The hope is that with some of these newer devices, that’s going to be a lot more streamlined… Hopefully, AMD can just directly release driver updates. The native landscape display will help as well, so stuff like… AMD Fluid Motion Frames, that should be a little bit easier to just roll right out, right? There’s not special consideration for our panel, that kind of thing. To be able to offer more streamlined updates. “
5. Legion Go 2 controllers are improved but also backwards compatible
As with the original Legion Go, the new Legion Go S and Legion Go 2 both feature Hall Effect joysticks. They also feature a bunch of improvements. The Legion Go 2 controllers are even backwards compatible, as explained by Meyers.
“…If people bought a Go 1 and they want to use the Go 2 controllers, the aim is to make those available to some degree and make sure that the newer controller options are still available for, you know, current customers.”
Meyers went on to explain that the new controllers have been improved based on feedback. The start/pause buttons are more easily reachable. They altered the D-Pad, more macro buttons were also included. “Another cool thing to mention about these, at least the plan, currently, which may change — again, this is a prototype; not everything is final — but inside of those controllers when you take them off, they each have their own individual USB-C port, so you can charge them separately outside of the device…the rail designs are largely unchanged. Same connection mechanism, but as many improvements as we can fit in there.”
The Go 2 controllers are actually bigger. They’re longer, but they’re more ergonomically flattened…
Something I was surprised to hear is that the Legion Go 2 controllers are actually larger than the Go 1 controllers. They just look smaller due to their more curved design.
“The Go 2 controllers are actually bigger. They’re longer, but they’re more ergonomically flattened, and the buttons, you can’t really see in some of the pictures, but the buttons are all separated as well…So they’re going to feel less clunky while you’re using it. And then those chamfered edges on the bottom are what I think what most people care about and was our primary concern.”
6. There’s a reason that an OLED panel is only offered for Legion Go 2 and not Legion Go S
The Legion Go S is specifically intended as a lower-cost gaming handheld. As such, it doesn’t have as many features as the upcoming Legion Go 2. Meyers explains that’s why it doesn’t have an OLED panel like the Go 2 does.
“It’s more expensive to go add OLED to these devices. We want to make sure that the Go 2 and the Go S could live at different price ranges.”
Talking about the OLED panel, Meyers explained that the Go 2 prototype’s 8.8-inch OLED touchscreen has a great color gamut that produces 97% of DCI-P3, offers FHD resolution, reaches 144Hz refresh rate, gets as bright as 500 nits, and supports both native landscape and VRR. He also later clarified that it will support HDR as well.
7. The SteamOS Legion Go S will not ship with dual boot for Windows
The SteamOS and Windows versions of the Legion Go S are built differently by design, with Meyers clarifying that “most likely, we will never be able to ship a dual boot from factory.” However, he and Green both mentioned that owners can do what they want with the devices once they are in their hands. So, if you feel comfortable doing so, you can make it so the Legion Go S can dual boot between the two operating systems.
BONUS: Lenovo planned the Legion Go handhelds with upgradeability in mind
Not everyone feels comfortable doing it, but I know I and several other gaming handheld owners have opened our devices in order to upgrade storage, RAM, and other features. When asked how easy it would be to upgrade the Legion Go S and Legion Go 2, Meyers explained that this was something Lenovo had planned for.
“Yeah, so storage, obviously replaceable,” Meyers said. “The memory will still be soldered. Again, that’s just because it lets us make the devices thinner, and it improves battery life as well. So, like the [LPDDR] 5X that we have in there… but it’s all done with the best experience in mind. And then now these will be available in 32 Gig options as well. So, it’s a little bit less necessary to go upgrade the memory…So these will ship with the 2242… but then if you want to upgrade, if you buy a two terabyte or whatever and you want to put that in there, there will be space for the 2280 on both devices.”
Legion Go S and Go 2 are looking fantastic
Ever since I got my hands on PC gaming handhelds, I’ve been using them more often than my PC gaming laptop or consoles. I’m ecstatic to try out the next wave of handhelds featuring the new AMD Z2 chips.
As clarified in this official Lenovo Legion Q&A, the Legion Go S and Legion Go 2 are going to offer a bunch of improvements over the original Legion Go. I’m sure games will run more smoothly on the next-gen device. It also looks like it will be easier to hold these handhelds and use the buttons due to all of the design changes. Meanwhile, being able to upgrade the devices as needed is also very appealing.
The white Windows version of the Legion Go S will launch on Feb 14, 2025, and is available for preorder for $729.99. Meanwhile, the Nebula Violet SteamOS Legion Go S is set to launch in May 2025. There is no release date for the Legion Go 2 yet, but it is expected to launch this year.
