The Lenovo Legion Go S May Be the King of Comfort, but Its Performance Leaves Me Wanting More (Review)

When I first saw the Lenovo Legion GO S, I was immediately in love. It’s a gorgeous handheld, paired with a massive screen for my aging eyes, and even a little trackpad. That’s something that most of these portable PCs forget to consider when designing their premium devices. However, after getting to go hands-on with the Lenovo Legion GO S for a few weeks, I found that it’s little more than a pretty face. It’s an expensive piece of tech, and as it currently stands, it can’t match the price-to-performance like the competition can.

A Legion Go S in The Hand Is Worth Two in The Bush

One of the most positive things I can say about the Lenovo Legion GO S is how certifiably comfortable it is to hold. It’s a massive handheld, with a gorgeous 8-inch screen. Its buttons, triggers, and sticks are all fantastic to use, even if the D-pad is a little squishy and mushy. And the small trackpad nub makes navigation a breeze. It feels great to hold and never felt overwhelmingly heavy while playing. Sloped plastic on the back also helped combat fatigue while jumping into extremely long sessions.

I was also extremely pleased by the quality of the speakers. While they may be missing some of the finer details, they’re some of the best I’ve heard on any handheld gaming device. And they can get quite loud without distorting the details of the games that I was playing.

It’s becoming the norm for these gaming handhelds to also feature a smattering of additional features to make them feel more set up for “pro” level gaming. The Lenovo Legion GO S has two back buttons, alongside trigger stops to reduce the amount of pressure needed to activate the trigger. It feels as premium as its price demands.

A Premium Design Can’t Help The Abysmal Battery Life of the Legion Go S

The size of the Lenovo Legion GO S led me to believe that this thing was housing a monstrous battery. It features a 55W battery, and that should be more than enough to eke out some adequate gaming time, right? Regardless of the TDP settings I chose, or the predetermined “Profile” that I used, I was lucky to get a couple of hours. Even though it has a larger battery than the original Legion GO, it doesn’t last as long as its previous generation. That’s not exactly the greatest look for the handheld.

Lenovo Legion GO S (Windows Edition) Tech Specs

Lenovo Legion GO S Info	Technical Specs
Display	8-Inch WQXGA LCD, 16:10, 500 Nits Brightness
Memory/RAM	Up To 32GB DDR5X-6400
Storage	Up to 1TB SSD
Battery	55.5W
Connectivity	WiFI 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
Ports	2 USB C, 1 3.5mm Headphone Jack, SD Reader
Dimensions	11.77in W x 5.02in H x 0.88in D
GPU	Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics Card
CPU	AMD Ryzen Z2 Go
Operating System	Windows 11

Regardless of the games that I was playing, I wanted to ensure that I was near a wall outlet at basically any time. House Flipper 2, for example, would roughly net me around 1 hour and 30 minutes of playtime, give or take a small margin. And seeing as my wife and I can play for two or three hours at a time together, this wasn’t exactly stellar. Even after messing around with the different profiles in the, admittedly, fantastic Lenovo Launcher, I couldn’t get that battery to last as long as I felt it should.

And most importantly, the performance of the Legion Go S had me questioning if it was just pre-release blues, or if it was really just not performing as expected. I waited beyond the original release date to see if there may have been software updates that would help with performance. Pre-release software sometimes can hinder more than help, you know. But, in the case of the Legion GO S, that wasn’t the case. And it’s a crying shame because it’s a beautiful handheld with a ton of potential. But, lackluster internals makes it fall behind the pack.

a gorgeous display can’t make up for lackluster Performance

The Lenovo Legion Go S is not a cheap handheld. Retailing for an MSRP of $729.99 for the Windows 11 Edition? I would expect that its performance would match its lofty price tag. Unfortunately, that is not the case here. The Lenovo Legion Go S is easily one of the most comfortable handhelds I’ve ever used. But, watching it struggle while playing games like House Flipper 2 and become a TSR nightmare in Tokyo Xtreme Racer, I had to jump into 3DMark to see where it stands against other handhelds.

As we can see, it scored 2,142 on Time Spy and 5,664 on Fire Strike. And at first glance, that appears to be pretty alright. Comparing it to the Steam Deck, which typically scores around 4,342 on Fire Strike and 1,639 on Time Spy, this may appear to be pretty good. But, after comparing it to my Ayaneo Air 1S from 2023, things started to crack under the pressure.

Ayaneo Air 1S ‘Time Spy’ and ‘Fire Strike’ Results

The result from the Ayaneo Air 1S typically came in around 2,808 for Time Spy and 6,389 for Fire Strike. For a handheld much smaller, and technically much older, that’s not a great look. When comparing in a similar price range, the ASUS Rog Ally X typically scores around 3,336 for Time Spy and 7,680 for Fire Strike. That’s a massive improvement for around $80 more.

That’s where my biggest issue with the Lenovo Legion GO S lies. There has already been a promise of a more cost-effective version down the line. $599 should have been the asking price for the Windows 11 and Steam OS versions of this handheld. As the $729 asking price for this version cannot be recommended in good faith. It’s a beautifully designed handheld, don’t get me wrong. But CPU and GPU bottlenecking, alongside a lackluster battery, make this one hard to recommend.

At this point, purely on build quality alone? I could absolutely recommend the Lenovo Legion GO S. But, I would say to wait it out until the Steam OS version releases later this year. If this was the same price? I’d be happy to recommend it to just about anyone. But right now, there are better options for less money and even better options for just a little more.

Verdict: Not Recommended (Windows Version)

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The Lenovo Legion Go S (Windows Version) is available to purchase now. A unit was provided by the manufacturer for the sake of review.