I was excited to give Lenovo’s latest Windows gaming handheld a spin. Seriously. My mind’s been changed on PC game handhelds since the Steam Deck won me over. Loading Steam games on the go works surprisingly well on Valve’s hardware, which has opened up my ability to play all sorts of games I can’t find on the Nintendo Switch. But Lenovo’s Legion Go S, a more compact follow-up to Lenovo’s previous Legion Go, dumped buckets of water on my excitement. Over a year has gone by, and not much has changed.
Starting at $730, the Go S isn’t cheap, and it isn’t small, either. It makes the long, large Steam Deck look compact by comparison. And yet, Lenovo’s large 8-inch, higher-res 1,920×1,200-pixel 120Hz display, along with its comfortable analog sticks and buttons and triggers, seemed ready to show me some fun. If only I could play the games I wanted to.
Like
Sturdy buttons and triggers
Can run games from multiple app stores via Windows
Crisp 8-inch display
Don’t like
Unimpressive game performance
Bulky size with no kickstand
Microsoft Windows gets in the way
The first thing I did was use my Microsoft GamePass Ultimate subscription to download some games to play. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle? I got a graphics/driver error, and it wouldn’t run. Forza Horizon 5? It loaded, slowly, and ran at such a terrible frame rate, even with lowered resolution and graphics, that I gave up. Madden 25, a game that won’t work on Steam Deck because of EA’s anticheat authorization requirements, did technically load up… and was so unplayable and stuttery that I wanted to cry. I lowered my expectations and tried some indie games. Chants of Sennar and Cuphead — all good there. Is this all Windows handheld gaming can do? If so, Microsoft’s Xbox app has no idea how to let me know what works and what doesn’t.
Windows gaming handhelds are held back by one thing: Windows. It’s never been clearer after trying out the Lenovo Legion Go S after months and months of Steam Deck gaming. Steam Deck mostly gets out of the way and does its best to deliver games that load decently and play well. My Legion Go S experience has been full of pushy and arcane Windows software, glitchy bugs, games that aren’t compatible or games that run so terribly I’d never play them.
I defaulted to a few of my own indie favorites to play, mainly UFO 50 — a game I’ve been addicted to for over half a year. But UFO 50 is a low-lift game graphically. As much as I love it, it’s not the reason to spend nearly $800 on a gaming handheld.
Watch this: The Problem With Windows Gaming Handhelds Is Windows: Tech Therapy
Chunky, semi-compact design
Calling the Legion Go S a “smaller” gaming handheld is a misnomer. It’s more compact than Lenovo’s first Legion Go –which had an 8.8-inch display and detachable wireless controllers, plus a kickstand — but not by much. I’m surprised how similar the two handhelds still are in size.
The Legion Go S has a smaller display, its controls are fixed to its body and there’s no kickstand. It’s now a pure handheld, much like the Steam Deck. I like the sturdy feel of the Go S’s analog sticks, buttons and triggers, but they’re not any better than what the Steam Deck has.
The Steam Deck OLED (right) looks compact next to the Legion Go S (left).
The Steam Deck has control advantages: more buttons (more paddle buttons on the back), better-vibrating haptics and two clickable trackpads. The Legion Go S has a single, tiny trackpad on the right side, which I found hard to use (it’s there mainly to help navigate Windows). The handheld’s vibrating haptics feel generic; just a flat buzz.
The Legion Go S doesn’t come with a carrying case, which I’d want. (The Legion Go and Steam Deck both do.) There are vents at the top of the plastic body, and vents all across the back of the handheld. I wouldn’t want to get dust in there.
There are two USB-C ports, helpful for charging plus connecting to a monitor (or wearable display glasses). The upcoming Nintendo Switch has two USB-C ports too, but the Steam Deck only has one.
The Legion Go S (left) feels about as big and thick as the original Legion Go (right), which is surprising since it has a smaller screen and no detachable controllers.
Performance is surprisingly lackluster
Everything on the Legion Go S feels laggy. Launching apps takes a while, even Lenovo’s software-shell Legion game launcher app. Launching games takes a while, too. Sometimes I wondered if the handheld fell asleep.
The onboard AMD Ryzen Z2 Go processor isn’t an upgrade compared to the Legion Go’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme. To be fair, AMD and Lenovo never made great claims that it was a performance improvement. In many cases, I found games ran worse on this handheld than on the OLED Steam Deck.
Sony’s Ratchet and Clank wasn’t very fun to play on this.
Elden Ring was playable but had more frame rate drops than on my Steam Deck experiences. Sony’s Spider-Man 2, which is Steam Deck optimized, ran fine on the Steam Deck but there were glitches and a missing Spider-Man on the Legion Go S. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart also had notable performance drops on Legion Go S compared to Steam Deck. This was after I lowered graphics settings and reduced the Legion Go S’s screen resolution down to 1,200×800 pixels, which is the same as the Steam Deck’s resolution. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to play games on this in 1,920×1,200 pixels.
The Legion Go S’s venting fans kick in frequently, pumping heat out of the back and top. Battery life didn’t feel great so far either, handling a couple of hours before I felt I needed to recharge. (More battery thoughts below.)
There are two USB-C ports on top, and like Steam Deck, its thick design and jutting sides mean you’ll need a specific type of carrying case.
Gaming wedged in an ugly Windows 11 OS
Once again, Microsoft has failed to optimize its UI or software experience for Windows gaming handhelds. This device loads up straightforward Windows 11, down to Bing spam and your standard Windows software updates. Steam and the Xbox app run as standard Windows applications, with small interface text. I’ve been spoiled by Valve’s handheld-friendly Steam experience on Steam Deck, which is very different.
I was most disappointed by Microsoft’s mishandling of gaming via its own software services. I subscribe to GamePass Ultimate, and I have access to many games that seem to say they’ll download onto the Lenovo Legion Go S. Whether they actually run or play in any acceptable manner is up to you to discover. Microsoft doesn’t indicate games that are handheld-ready like Steam does. The trial-and-error process for games that can sometimes run 100GB or more in size kills me.
Lower-demand indie games generally run fine. And yes, the flexibility of running Windows 11 means you could run games from any source or game store, or mod this up with your own software like Bazzite (which I’ve never tried). But then you’re tinkering. Is this a tinker gadget? Yeah, I guess so. But I don’t want a tinker gadget: I want a gaming handheld that just works. And I have no interest in checking Outlook on this device.
Lots of vents.
Steam Deck, SteamOS or bust
There’s a cheaper $500 version of Legion Go S running Valve’s SteamOS coming later this spring. I haven’t seen how it functions yet, but that’ll be Valve’s first third-party Steam Deck hardware. Based on my experiences so far, that’ll be the better option. I don’t want to keep playing on the Windows 11 Legion Go S — or, more accurately, trying to play. It’s just not fun, and I need things to work well and be fun when I’m gaming because life is short and the world is challenging, and for upwards of $700 you should get that.
Or, here’s a more straightforward solution: Get the OLED Steam Deck. Going back to it, I appreciated once again how much better it is. Sure, it only runs Steam out of the box, but you can hack around that if you’re a tinkering person. At least it works. And right now, we don’t expect a new Steam Deck 2 anytime soon.
No issue with those buttons, but not wild about that tiny trackpad.
If you’re interested in handheld gaming regardless of PC compatibility, Nintendo has a new Switch 2 on the way. That won’t run your Windows games, but it could be capable of running more PC-like game ports. It’s just a sign that the bar for handheld gaming could be raised soon, and it makes devices like this one harder to accept.
Microsoft says it’ll work on making better Windows gaming handheld experiences this year. I’ll believe it when I see it. Right now, there’s no reason to get onboard Windows handheld gaming. But PC handheld gaming? Sure, get something SteamOS-based. We’ll check in again when we see the Legion Go S in a cheaper, SteamOS-ready form.
