A Handheld Made For Big, Meaty Claws

You buy Lenovo’s new Legion Go 2 handheld for the screen. The performance is secondary to how beautiful recent 2D titles look on the 8.8-inch, 1200p OLED display. The Legion Go 2 is otherwise a big, meaty handheld for gamers with big, meaty claws. You’ll struggle to hold it above your head lying in bed unless you’re a professional power lifter; the controls won’t be your favorite; it’s as wonky as its predecessor. And it’s hard to argue anybody should spend well over $1,000 on a gaming handheld rather than just buying a full gaming laptop.

Despite all that, I can’t help but enjoy the hell out of it. My initial hours spent rolling my eyes at everything Lenovo failed to fix from its first iteration slowly morphed into the kind of appreciation that can only occur when a device starts to feel personal. It’s what happened when I downloaded Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades II to the device and had to hold back a gasp on a crowded plane for how gorgeous both games looked on Lenovo’s big, expensive, beautiful display.

It’s the same feeling I get from Valve’s $550 Steam Deck OLED, which uses the same organic light-emitting diode screen technology to present deeper contrast and rich colors. Valve’s handheld maxes out at 800p on an older, custom AMD chipset. Even when you factor in performance and display size, the Steam Deck OLED is still a much, much better deal. My review unit version of the Legion Go 2 with the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage, costs $1,350. I could literally buy two Steam Decks for this price (more if I opted for the LCD model). For Lenovo’s inflated price, I could run out and buy three $450 Nintendo Switch 2 handhelds. You could nab a version of the Legion Go 2 that starts at $1,100 for a version with a AMD Ryzen Z2, but judging by my tests that chip will land closer in power to handhelds that are three years old and cost much less.

It’s a ridiculous scenario that consumers are taking the brunt of Donald Trump’s obsession with import taxes, aka tariffs. And in that way, consumers are screwed no matter what. The upcoming Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, which is set to launch on Oct. 16 with the same Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, will set you back $1,000. The original Legion Go asked for $700 in 2023. The Asus ROG Ally X demanded $800 at launch last year. Both now retail at a higher price, likely due to tariffs. I would tell you to wait and buy a new handheld, but there’s no way to tell if prices might increase in coming months.

Really? You kept FPS mode?

What drives me mad using the Legion Go 2 is how Lenovo held back from improving over the 2023 handheld. The revised version is far more ergonomic than the two-year-old device with its sharp corners. Both handhelds let you remove each controller and play with the screen separated, like the Nintendo Switch. The Switch 2 did away with rails and went for magnetic connections for each Joy-Con 2, which makes attaching and detaching the controllers a little easier. Lenovo’s old and new system still use a series of exposed pins you jam into a cavity on each side of the screen. You need two hands and a strong pitching arm to remove each controller with a down and out motion. Reattaching them can be just as annoying.

See Lenovo Legion Go 2 at Best Buy

The controller uses Hall effect sticks that are much better at surviving stick drift, though they still feel a little too thin on my fingers compared to other handhelds I’ve used. The Legion Go 2 has slightly redesigned bumper buttons that make it easier to press and the same, large triggers. The $650 Legion Go S had a switch to enable instant triggers with less travel—better for first-person shooter games, but because of the removable controllers you’ll have to stick with the full range of motion.

The Switch 2’s big standout feature is its new mouse mode enabled just by putting the controller down on a table or your pant’s leg. Lenovo did it first on the Legion Go with its FPS mode. So is it any better now? No, absolutely not. You still need to remove the right controller and flick the “FPS” switch to turn on an optical mouse sensor. You then need to slot it into a base to hold it like an old-school flight stick, where the two side buttons act as the left and right mouse click. The DPI is still low enough you’ll struggle to get it working on anything but a desk. Even when you do, using a joystick and the FPS controller together necessitates changing the in-game controls. I tried it in both Cyberpunk 2077 and Borderlands 4, and it caused such havoc with both titles I was loathe to use the FPS mode again.

As for I/O, the Legion Go 2 has both a bottom and top USB-4 port. In theory, this could allow you to hook it up to an eGPU. More likely, it’s sole purpose is for charging or hooking up to a dock for HDMI passthrough. As much as Lenovo implies you’ll create a full “battle station” out of your device for instantaneous PC, you don’t want to hook it up to anything larger than a 1440p monitor, and only then for playing games most systems can run anyway.

Strangely enough, one of the best improvements over the last generation handheld is the Legion Go 2’s new soft carrying case. The old case was very protective, but it was also enormous. The new version is smaller and more squat than the default Steam Deck case, which makes lugging around the 8.8-inch handheld onto planes surprisingly easy. There’s two little hidey-holes for the FPS mode stand, but since you’ll never use it, you can stick anything else in there. Just don’t tell me what.

The Legion Go 2 is so damn pretty

All the new ergonomics make it easier to hold, but not enough that it won’t feel heavy in your hands. You’ll find you’ll need a table or lap to rest your elbows on, or else you’ll use the built-in kickstand to prop it up on your desk. Either way you hold it, you’ll end up enjoying this handheld mostly for the display. As I said earlier, the 8.8-inch OLED display is sublime. It doesn’t have any higher screen resolution than the Legion Go’s 1,920 x 1,200, but it’s enough to make games pop.

For my hands, the Legion Go 2 is just large enough where I can grip it and access all the controls. Other users who are smaller in stature may not be so lucky. Ignore all those 11-inch handhelds out there. Near-9-inch devices are more than enough. The screen also sports a 144Hz refresh rate with VRR, or variable refresh rate. All those games that can hit above 100 fps (which, let’s be honest, will mostly be older or 2D titles), will look their peak on the Legion Go 2.

The screen feels bright enough indoors, but while Lenovo promises you’ll get 1,100 nits of HDR brightness, the screen is not great for using outdoors. It’s blinded by direct sunlight, and even sitting near a window you’ll see most details disappear. The screen is also very reflective. A matte coating would have dulled the display quality, but it’s at the risk of catching a glimpse of your girlfriend walking up behind you.

Ryzen Z2 Extreme isn’t a huge leap

The AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme APU is purely iterative. If you’ve been watching like a hawk, hoping to devour the latest and fastest handheld chip, this isn’t it. The performance difference generation to generation is minimal. In some games, you could get 5 to 10 fps more at the highest TDP, or thermal design power, People who focus too hard on benchmarks will come away disappointed. If you care more about whether the system can play the latest AAA games, know that you’ll be able to achieve playable frame rates at the max 1200p resolution though only by dropping any hope of ray tracing for more-realistic lighting effects.

See Lenovo Legion Go 2 at Best Buy

I’m fundamentally a gamer who refuses to drop the resolution of games for the sake of performance. I will lower graphics settings in a desperate attempt to eek out the minimum 30 fps. The Legion Go 2 can manage to take some AAA games into playable states at the max 35W of TDP (thermal design power) once the handheld’s engines are firing on all cylinders. TDP determines how much power is being sent to the processor, which will dictate overall performance. Borderlands 4 is one of those games notorious for running poorly on PC and consoles alike (you won’t find the game on Switch 2 in the coming days, either). I was able to get a stable sub-40 fps on the lowest possible graphics settings. I could achieve a little better frame rates in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Even at lower graphics settings, the game still looks and sounds great on the small screen.

Older games fare better. Control could average 40 to 49 fps at low settings with the handheld plugged in. The Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark at 1200p and medium settings preset with AMD’s FSR upscaling saw an average of 44 fps, while at 1080p with the same settings it could hit 48 fps. In Baldur’s Gate III, I could average above 60 fps in the open areas of Act 1 and get between 45 and 55 fps in the city environments of Act III.

In 3DMark benchmarks, the Legion Go 2 hit a score of 3,305 and 24.48 average fps in Steel Nomad Lite tests. That’s 1,000 points better than the Legion Go S with its Ryzen Z2 Go chip running on Windows, but it’s only a little more than 300 points better than the Z1 Extreme on the Asus ROG Ally X from 2024. The new device hit 3,897 points in Time Spy tests, which again is barely more than 300 points better than an Ally X. It’s not much better than an MSI Claw 8 AI+, which uses a full Intel laptop chip. Simply put, the Legion Go 2 isn’t a huge step over the previous gen at the max wattage.

However, the device’s secret sauce is in how well it performs at lower wattages. Tests with multiple games at wattages as low as 34 fps still enabled relatively stable frame rates in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider. While in Cyberpunk 2077 at full resolution and Steam Deck settings, the device gets 44 fps in benchmarks, at 15W it still managed to eek out nearly 30 fps. I don’t expect anybody will run high-end games on lower power. Instead, the best experience comes from games that are far less intensive. I could net well over 160 fps in Hades II on the “Balanced” performance setting. Hollow Knight: Silksong seems like it was built with the Legion Go 2 in mind with automatic settings to stay around 144Hz. These games play so gloriously on this handheld, I don’t want to play them on anything else. It’s a shame you have to spend $350 more than an Xbox Ally X jut for that pretty screen and higher refresh rate.

Windows still sucks for handhelds, but it could get better

On balanced power settings, I could game for around 2 hours and 40 minutes before the device was literally begging me to plug it in. In other tests where I was gaming at the full resolution and wattage playing Indiana Jones, it lasted closer to 2 hours. The Legion Go 2 sports a 74Wh battery, which is slightly worse than the ROG Ally X’s 80Wh. The larger OLED display and higher max resolution will inevitably drag the battery life down.

At this point, players should not expect a handheld that will last very long. The ROG Ally X still has one of the best battery life at full power when it gets closer to 3 hours of runtime. In real life, the difference is negligible. At this point in my life, having a max two hours of playtime is strangely beneficial. If I’m clearing room after room in Hades II late at night, the battery timer is essentially my alarm. If it’s close to 12 a.m. and I’m about to run out of power, it’s a sign I should get some rest.

Depending on the game you’re playing, the device’s fans can get relatively loud. Even at max speed I wouldn’t call them jet engine noise. It’s enough to remind you to be mindful when sitting next to strangers on a plane. The device kept very cool in my time using it. I never felt any heat around the controls, and the area around the fans also didn’t feel steamy when playing a game at max wattage.

I can’t excuse the price, but I had such a good time with the Legion Go 2 it felt like a personal companion after traveling for more than a week and a half away from home. But there’s an elephant in the room shaped like a big “X” we need to address. The Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X are supposed to launch with a new version of Windows, dubbed the “Full Screen Experience” (FSE) built exclusively for gaming handhelds. While this may fix the lingering usability issues of Windows 11 on a 7- or 8-inch screen, the upgrade should also eliminate background tasks and—hopefully—boost performance by 20%. The issue is that Microsoft has said you may need to wait until next spring to get it on handhelds like the Legion Go 2.

Windows is terrible on handhelds. It gets in the way when trying to put the device to sleep while still in-game. It bombards you with popups for OneDrive that you need to use the touchscreen to excise. It saps power and makes the device run worse than it would if it was running SteamOS, the same Linux-based operating system running on the Steam Deck. In our tests, the Legion Go S with SteamOS outperforms its Windows counterpart by 20 to 30%. Unless you’re dead set on keeping your Xbox Game Pass games handy, I would suggest looking into installing Valve’s software on the Legion Go 2. I have not confirmed whether you can install SteamOS on the new handheld, though if its not compatible at launch, I assume an update may be around the corner. Without the FSE or SteamOS, this can’t be my handheld of choice. With a new operating system, the Legion Go 2 would become the bell of the ball for modern PC handhelds.

See Lenovo Legion Go 2 at Best Buy