Before I bought the Legion Go, I was skeptical it would be better than any of the other gaming devices I already had. Turns out, I was wrong.
Unboxing the Legion Go
I purchased the Legion Go on pre-order from Best Buy, and it arrived a couple of days after its release. When you open the box, you’ll find the Legion Go packaged in a case. It also comes with a 65W charger and a warranty card. That’s about it—there’s nothing else in the box, not even the customary instruction booklet no one reads.https://youtu.be/6Ux47q_dOXo
First Impressions of the Case
After you remove the product sleeve, you’ll find the Legion Go case. I was wrong about this. I thought with the hardware they were giving us, Lenovo would cheap out on accessories and give us something like a lame cardboard stand that ASUS gave us with the ROG Ally. But the Legion Go case is actually rather nice. The exterior of the case is a textured hard shell with “Legion” printed on the top. Inside, there’s a soft fabric lining and a slot that allows you to charge the Legion Go while it’s still in the case. Inside the case, you’ll find what I think is supposed to be a cleaning cloth, and underneath that is the Legion Go itself.
Specs and Initial Thoughts
The Legion Go comes with an AMD Z1 Extreme processor, 16 GB of LPDDR5X memory, and 1 TB of storage. Lenovo claims the Legion Go has unbeatable power and is built for the competitive gamer. More on this later.
When I first picked up the Legion Go, I realized I was wrong about its ergonomics. Because of its size, I thought it was going to be too heavy to hold and uncomfortable to use in handheld mode. On my scale, the Legion Go weighed 863g compared to the ROG Ally, which weighed 630g, and the Steam Deck, which weighed 690g. The Legion Go is significantly bigger than the Asus Rog Ally and SteamDeck, but the weight is well balanced, and I didn’t have any problems with it in handheld mode. I was just as comfortable playing the Legion Go lying on my couch as I was playing it at the kitchen counter. I was able to easily reach all of the buttons and controls, the only exception being the trackpad, which required me to adjust my hand position to use.
User Interface and Navigation
Speaking of the trackpad, I found it a must-have for navigating the Legion Go’s user interface and a far better solution than the ROG Ally, which uses a controller stick. You’ll be able to figure out the navigation of the user interface easily. It looks like Lenovo put a simple skin over Windows. With the press of a button, you’ll be able to go from the Lenovo skin to Windows desktop mode. Most of the home screen seems like an advertisement for games. Lenovo also gives you quick access to gaming platforms like Xbox, Epic, Ubisoft, Steam, and others. Once you install games, they should show up in the library section, although Valorant didn’t show up after I downloaded it.
Settings are in a standard two-column display. You’ll find settings for performance, network, Bluetooth, display, disk space, and others. I especially like the disk space tab, which lets you quickly see how much storage you have left. It’s not the simplest user interface, but it’s not the worst. I would call it adequate.
Ergonomics and Design
One thing I don’t like about the Legion Go’s ergonomics is the placement of the hamburger button. The hamburger button is used while playing a game to get into the game settings. On most controllers, you’ll find it on the right side of the controller. You will also find it here on other game systems like the ROG Ally. However, on the Legion Go, it’s on the bottom left side, and the system settings are on the right side. It’s not that big of a deal, but for me, it took some getting used to.
You can remove the Legion Go controllers by pressing a button on the back. Then there is a small switch on the bottom which will put the Legion Go into FPS mode. I thought this was really gimmicky at first, and I really didn’t like the idea of placing my hand on the connection points, but I used it a couple of times, and playing in FPS mode was enjoyable. Although I’m not really sure how much I would use this feature in the future, I like the Nintendo Switch’s ability to turn your Joy-Cons into controllers better. Hopefully, this is something Lenovo will eventually add.
Display and Performance
I was wrong about the screen. The Legion Go has a 16:10, 8.8-inch WQXGA 2560 x 1600 display. It supports up to 144Hz and can be scaled down to 800p by 60Hz. I didn’t think there would be much of a difference between playing with the larger screen on the Legion Go and a smaller screen of, let’s say, an ASUS ROG Ally, but there was a huge difference. Playing with the larger screen was a joy, and it made a big difference in how I played. I’m slightly older, and having a bigger screen made it easier for me to see the games I was playing, and games were more immersive.If it weren’t for a couple of other issues, the Legion Go would be my favorite gaming device just because of the larger screen.
I love the kickstand on the Nintendo Switch, and the kickstand on the Legion Go is just as good. It has a very sturdy hinge which will allow you to place it in multiple positions. This is great for when you want to play in FPS mode.
Ports and Storage
On the top right of the Legion Go, you’ll find the power button, headphone/mic combo, speaker, and vent holes. On the other side, you’ll find the SD card reader, USB-C port, volume control, and another speaker. On the bottom, you’ll find an extra USB-C port.
Speaking of micro SD cards, for mine, I’m using a SanDisk Extreme Plus 1TB micro SD. I didn’t have any issue with the Legion Go recognizing the micro SD. I inserted the card, went to Steam settings, then storage, then added a new drive and a new Steam library folder. When I wanted to download a game, I just picked the new SD card as the destination.
Issues and Solutions
Everything seemed to go well on day one, but then I started noticing some little problems. There was a little flickering that started happening across my screen, and the screen continued to flicker as I was playing a game. I’m not sure what caused this or even if I should have mentioned it, but full disclosure. Fortunately, once I powered off the Legion Go and then turned it back on, the flicker seemed to go away. I haven’t had a problem with it since.
But this is not the only problem I would have with the Legion Go. One of the things I didn’t like about the ASUS ROG Ally was that it didn’t seem like Microsoft or ASUS tried to optimize Windows for a handheld gaming device. Well, the same thing applies to the Legion Go. Although the Legion Go is a gaming device, when you first start it, you have to go through all the steps you take when you start a Windows PC, including setting up your Wi-Fi, reviewing and accepting the Microsoft Windows licensing agreement, signing into your Microsoft Windows account, Microsoft restoring your apps and files from a previous PC, customizing your experience, and installing Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This is supposed to be a handheld gaming device.
Eventually, you’ll get to the part where you actually install gaming software on your gaming device, but of course, Microsoft Windows will ask you if you actually want to install that first, and you’ll have to install updates from Lenovo Legion. Once you get Legion Space installed, you’ll finally get to the point where you can download things that are related to gaming. All of this takes a tremendous amount of time.
But my problems with the Legion Go weren’t restricted to the startup. When I tried to play Starfield, the game would load, I would start playing, but eventually, the game would just stop. I also had issues while trying to play Ratchet and Clank. The game would load, get to a certain point, and then stop before I would get a chance to play. I couldn’t get Fortnite to load either. It would give me a message that it was connecting, another message that it was logging in, and then the screen would eventually just go blank for a long period of time. Out of frustration, I would just stop the process. When I tried to play Valiant at first I got a small tiny screen.
Now, remember when Lenovo said their processors were unbeatable? I’ve been playing Ratchet and Clank on my Steam Deck for quite a while now without any problems whatsoever, and the same goes for Starfield. Valorant runs perfectly fine on the ROG Ally.
Fortunately, I was able to find some solutions to these issues. One fix I found was downloading the latest AMD graphics drivers. After installing the new graphics drivers, I was able to get Starfield to work without stopping, and I was finally able to run Fortnite too. I was able to get Valorant to finally work by searching through the tiny little settings and finding full-screen mode. It probably would have been easier if I had connected it to a monitor. I was able to get Rachel and Clank to work by going into the BIOS and change the VRAM to 8GB.
Conclusion
Overall, I think the Legion Go is a fantastic gaming device. It’ll be my go-to device just because of the larger screen. But if you’re trying to decide whether or not the Legion Go is right for you, you have every right to be skeptical.