Playing the Lenovo Legion Go 2 handheld made me yearn for the simplicity of my Switch 2
Not even a decade ago, the idea of playing console-quality (or higher) video games in a handheld form factor was more aspiration than reality. Yet, here we are in 2025, with Lenovo already launching the sequel to its flagship handheld gaming PC. Time flies!
I'm talking, of course, about the Lenovo Legion Go 2. Starting at $1,099, this mobile powerhouse has just about everything you could want in a handheld gaming PC: A powerful AMD Ryzen chip, a gigantic 8.8-inch display, detachable controllers with a bevy of auxiliary optional buttons, and the ability to work with any PC gaming marketplace you use.
That said...in my brief time with it, I'm wondering if I actually want any of that stuff in a world where the comparatively elegant (but also compromised) Nintendo Switch 2 exists. Heck, even a Steam Deck OLED, while inferior in some ways, is a more enjoyable product to use for my gaming needs. If it's possible for a machine to have too many features, the Legion Go 2 might be a good example of that.
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Lenovo Legion Go 2 has a little bit of everything
There are multiple models of the Legion Go 2 with a range of specs, but for starters, here's what's inside of the unit Lenovo provided Mashable for review:
AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor
8.8-inch OLED display with 1920x1200 resolution and 30-144Hz adaptive refresh rate
32GB RAM
1TB storage
Windows 11 OS out of the box
Interestingly, Lenovo arguably downgraded the display a bit from the first Legion Go. That device's panel was the same size and had the same refresh rate, but a higher 2560x1600 resolution. I can't say I mind that much, though, as I would argue that you get diminishing returns past 1080p or so when it comes to handheld gaming. Besides, lower screen resolution will probably equal better battery life, though I haven't had enough time with the Legion Go 2 to say that for sure.
The new processor also promises more horsepower under the hood. I've only been able to test a small handful of games so far, but early returns are positive, especially compared to the now-kinda-old Steam Deck OLED. Games like Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade and The Witcher 3 run at or near 60 frames per second on lower graphics settings, though little hitches here and there are noticeable. For those two games in particular, that's a small upgrade over the Steam Deck; FFVII Remake in particular would oscillate between 45 and 60FPS when I played it on my Steam Deck a couple years ago.
On the software side, the Legion Go 2 runs Windows 11 out of the box. There are pros and cons to this. On the upside, it means you can natively install and play games from any PC gaming marketplace, be it Steam, Epic Games Store, or Xbox Game Pass. That option is considerably less available on a Steam Deck running SteamOS. However, I have to say I miss the safe confines of SteamOS. Valve's custom handheld PC operating system has a much more touchscreen-friendly interface than Windows 11. Using the normal desktop version of Steam with your fingers straight up blows.
My colleague Zackery Cuevas at PCMag also noted in a Legion Go 2 hands-on piece recently that the SteamOS version of the original Legion Go saw notably better game performance than the Windows model. Whether that would be the case with Legion Go 2 or not is just speculation at this point, but that's worth keeping in mind, at any rate.
On the hardware end, Legion Go 2 is pretty comprehensive. It's got the usual array of analog sticks, shoulder buttons, and face buttons, but there are also numerous optional mappable buttons on the sides and back of the device. There are also six other buttons on the front of the device that do things like open the Legion Go-specific library hub for all of your games, switch between open windows, and pull up a handy UI that lets you change resolution and refresh rate on the fly.
Just like the previous Legion Go (and Switch), the controllers are also detachable. I need to spend more time with this feature before I can say much about its efficacy, but I'm sure some people will get plenty of use out of that. That definitely sets it apart from other handheld gaming PCs, if nothing else. There are circular LED lights surrounding each analog stick that light up and change color, too, which is fun. Lenovo has also gone and made the device more ergonomic in the hands, a welcome change from the weirdly angular original Legion Go.
But I think less might be more sometimes
Now that I've covered everything the Legion Go 2 can do, I feel the need to say that it honestly feels like a bit much at first blush.
For instance, all of those extra buttons are nice to have in theory, but for my money, they're a little too easy to accidentally press in the course of play. Thankfully, they don't do anything by default, but if you happen to map them in some way, I can see it becoming irritating. All of that plus the ability to detach the controllers also means the device, by necessity, has to have a lot of real estate, for lack of a better term. It's just very big and bulky, which would have been more tolerable had I not spent the past few months getting used to the Nintendo Switch 2.
It's tough to knock the Legion Go 2 too much, especially in comparison to the Switch 2, a device that costs a lot less, but can also do a lot less. Legion Go 2's library of potential games is bigger than Switch 2's by several orders of magnitude, and it's likely considerably more powerful, as well. But in the early stages of testing the Legion Go 2, I'm realizing that maybe I don't care about that. I think I care more about form factor and elegance than horsepower and tertiary features. After all, my Switch 2 is probably never going to tell me that a game I own for it is incompatible with the machine's graphics hardware, which is strangely what happened when I tried to play Halo Infinite on Legion Go 2.
I'll have a full review with more expanded thoughts on the Legion Go 2 soon, but for now, I'm wondering if maybe I'm just not the target audience for it.
Topics Gaming Lenovo Video Games
Alex Perry is a tech reporter at Mashable who primarily covers video games and consumer tech. Alex has spent most of the last decade reviewing games, smartphones, headphones, and laptops, and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. He is also a Pisces, a cat lover, and a Kansas City sports fan. Alex can be found on Bluesky at yelix.bsky.social.
