Legion Go 8.8

I generally don't like to give corporations free advertising, but this thing really impressed me. I bought it to play 3 games streets of rage 4, never winter nights, and retroarch. I was debating about getting a switch, or steam deck, but I am glad I got this. I can't believe how powerful the CPU is in this. The 2 pictures are of the legion and my liquid cooled 5600x. The legion almost beats it in everything, but most important is the single core score of 3600 which is really high, and what games need. Can't believe they sell this for 600. Just the screen and cpu alone are worth that. The screen is top notch, it's almost as good as my 120 OLED tv, the colors are great, the black uniform is decent, and in some ways it's better, it does white better than a oled can. Oleds have a tint on white screens this is doesn't, it is really a high quality screen. It plays streets of rage 4 at max settings and it's native resolution fine. It can do never winter nights at around 60 fps on high settings, which is surprising good. It's that 3600 CPU doing it, nwn is old and can't use a lot of cores. I was worried it would be hard to control mouse and keyboard games with this, but it has everything you need a touch pad, mouse wheel, and more importantly the control software they give you is excellent. That is a big one, most companies get the hardware right, but fail miserable at the software side, making it a night mare to control, or worse it's just bloat spy ware, looking at you Alienware. The program they give you works super well, easy to use, and does everything you want, from fan control, updates, onscreen keyboard, shortcuts, and its linked to one of the buttons. It stays very cool, for such a powerful machine the fan system they use is definitely good. The controllers are easy to use, they are backwards of the switch, they slide down not up to take them off, which had me for a second. This machine is Superior to all hand helds out there, by leaps and bounds. The only down side is it is a bit heavy. I've played it for over a hour and half holding it up and I was fine, and I'm no body builder 5'7 145, average. I would rather have the big screen and powerhouse, bigger battery then light anyways. The battery lasts on max performance playing never winter, maxing the GPU for over 2 hours, which is insanely good for what it's doing. It charges super fast as well, and comes with a long cable. Even if you aren't going to game much, you can't get a 2560 high end screen, with a desktop level CPU for 600 dollars. So this would work well for a laptop as well. Just pop the controllers off, it has a touch pad, and a sensor on the bottom of one of the controllers for moving the mouse. Use the back stand, and get a little keyboard, and bam you have a really decent laptop for 600 bucks. You can use the USB which it has 2 to hook it up to a monitor as well. Just beyond good price for what you get, and is super useful.

This has been my daily driver for 6 months now. When I first received it I logged in registered it with Lenovo and then immediately removed windows and installed Linux (CachyOS a Steam Deck Variant). I am a Docked user almost exclusively. For my use case this is the only Handheld on the market obviously your use case may change this. I mostly only use the tablet. It is great within the limitations of what you are getting. I am writing my review on this with a hub and peripherals attached. Pros Tablet Mode makes it stealthy and I can use it at work docked. Well built Feels solid Linux performance is great Screen is beautiful. Controllers have been great when I use them(have never once used FPS mode so I can't speak to that) Cons If using in handheld mode it can be fatiguing. Fan can be loud Storage could be higher. Finding cases for it can be challenging. It is a big boy.

I was already thinking on buying a SteamDeck, but the bigger screen on this stole me away. I have to say, I'm very glad I did. You have the functionality of a portable gaming PC, that runs windows 11, which you can detach the controllers and use it for streaming your favorite video apps and it has its own stand. Battery life is great. Having windows means that you dont need extra keyboard for those games that need keyboard input, you can use the virtual one easily. So using the keyboard feels like typing on your phone or tablet. You can use LenovoLegion UI for games or you can install Steam, Epic, EA and other UI that you might install on a regular PC normally hassle-free. Emulators run super smooth on this tech and with the advantage of the bigger screen, its just awesome!

It runs a little slow on some things but it runs good others it's hard to tell but I would like to be able to put an operating system that would just be minimum for it so the games could run better.. any suggestions

Great screen graphics are pretty good considering the smallish form factor. I had a steam deck lcd prior to this gaming handheld I miss the controller layout and the trackpads the most the legion has a touchpad for mouse control but it’s no where near as smooth as the steam decks. I enjoy having more power to run more intensive games and the much larger compatibility of games and the flexibility of windows to do more productivity tasks as well. The legion is built well and the built in kickstand is great for sitting on a desk at a hotel

I did a lot of research before deciding to get this, compared to the Asus ROG Ally and Steam Deck competition. I'm personally very happy with the purchase. Deciding factors compared to the competitors were: 1) Larger and sharper screen 2) Detachable controllers and built-in kickstand 3) Dual USB-C 4) FPS mode on the controllers 5) Most powerful hardware (tie with ROG Ally) It's very versatile due to its powerful CPU/GPU, at high TDP (thermal throttling) levels it can run AAA games at 60fps and 1080p resolution. The large screen makes it usable as a work machine in a pinch (need an external keyboard though realistically). Downsides: the performance comes at a cost to battery life. On the go, you can play AAA games as above but you will only get maybe 45 mins of battery life. You can lower resolution and TDP, or play less demanding games, and get 2-3 hours of life. One other thing that personally doesn't bother me, but may make this a difficult proposition for less computer-literate people, is that this is effectively a Windows tablet/laptop. To get the best out of it requires a decent amount of fiddling with settings and customisation, removing bloatware, closing programs that don't need to be running etc. The ROG Ally has the same issue, and this along with battery life is where a Steam Deck really wins. I hope my brief review above can help someone in considering which gaming handheld fits their needs best.

At this point I'm just angry with it. I've spent days trying to work with this thing. I updated Windows and everything I could through the normal interfaces immediately. Installed the same game (Tales of Symphonia) I've tried on the ASUS ROG (with no issues). First, I installed Steam, but even that was a pain. The APP Lenovo uses kept just initiating a .png file instead of an .exe file to run Steam, so I had to find a way to bypass and use Windows 11 on the tablet without understanding the mouse functions (no two finger tapping or anything like that). Finally got Steam installed, ran the game, it immediately flips my screen. Wow! I think, "Well, I should exit the game." Nope, now my Windows is in a flipped screen state. I had to turn it off at this point. Too many problems in a row. Come back to it, still have the same problem. I sought resolutions online. I even adjusted the rotation lock, flipped the screen, etc., but to no avail. I'll try again another day. Come back to it today and I'm looking to expand my troubleshooting. I hook it up to a USB-C dock (thankfully I had one) so I can connect to an HDMI display. I suppose I could have remoted into my TV also (that's an option), but I chose to work with my second monitor instead. I get it on and now the monitor is in the correct position while my Legion GO is flipped, and the screen acts right for my monitor, but upside down for my GO (even though I'm touching the GO screen). It's very disorienting. I tried messing with display settings, changing the power modes. I even changed the refresh rate of the monitor DOWN because I was planning on playing and I just wanted to make it stable. As soon as I did that it flipped my actual monitor sideways and made it very ugly. No correction on that. Had to reboot. No reseating the dock or the HDMI cable or turning the Hz rate back corrected it. I finally decided to try another game. I load up Helldivers 2 (I realize Helldivers has more problems than any game this year) and it loads up to the accept terms and "help us improve page" and it immediately freezes. I had to hard boot and restart. I looked for more solutions. Apparently the Lenovo APP has a driver update area. I'm in it currently. I updated the chipset. Restart. No fix to my current issues. I update the display driver (was definitely looking for an AMD app before) and it says "must restart and stay connected to power." Acknowledged. I'll definitely do that right. It does that, blinks the screen, and now I'm starting at a white screen on both the AMD Legion GO and my monitor. Just a big, white screen. That's where I'm currently at now. Don't trust these videos about the GO being the best device. I've played a Steam Deck. I've played the ASUS ROG. I've not had anywhere near the issues I'm having with this device. Someone decided that quality control was not a concern and sent this thing to market.

Got this for my birthday while recovering from a surgery. Perfect timing. This runs my favorite games well. Beamng, a demanding game, running on lower settings and resolution is capable of 120fps. Making it look better, I can get at least 60 or 70 and it plays fine. Wreckfest, Minecraft and a few other steam titles have been great on it. It is quite capable as a little PC also and it's processing power rivals my core I9 9900. The detachable controllers have long lasting batteries and I like the mouse functions. The screen is crisp and bright and I appreciate the build quality of the whole thing. Temps are well under control and the fan is audible, but not intrusive or loud. If I had some gripes, obviously battery life is on the lower side, about 2 hours when really pushing the device hard. And the sound quality of the built in speakers. It's bad. I expected smartphone like sound, but this is worse. Headphones are a must. I purchased this in Sep 2024 and the device was manufactured in Dec 2023. This is a larger gap than I am used to in tech products. May explain the good deals on this lately!