Finally!! The first thorough review. Great job and thank you. I’m excited to get one soon. It looks great and love how super intuitive it is in fps mode with the detached controllers. Lenovo knows something here… The track pad is a huge bonus over the Ally. Performance comparison is pretty much identical when you factor in the resolution. Hopefully, Lenovo will provide the same support like asus has with its ally when it comes to software.
Trackpad is handy, Tired of connecting a hub to a blue tooth mouse on Rog Ally and battery for mouse dies when you need it the most. That was a smart option to include a touch pad.
I’m happy that Lenovo continues to innovate on pointer inputs! Back when trackpads sucked and were universally small and sometimes unresponsive, Lenovo laptops included the little eraser nub-mouse in the center of the keyboard, and people loved it because they could mouse without taking their hands off the typing keys. Here, the Legion Go makes sense to have a trackpad since the mouse-nub was like a stiff analog stick, but Lenovo innovates again with the right controller stable to serve as a vertical mouse. Though the trackpad here has the disadvantage of being small, it is at least responsive, and I’m impressed that Lenovo included three options for solving the “mouse pointer” need (vertical mouse, trackpad, and touchscreen).
@@scarecrow9501why would this scare you? It’s a mini handheld pc as they’ve said so if they restrict you from buying from another place, that goes back on their word and could ultimately lead to unload all fan base and mad coustomers.
This thing legitimately looks great. Valve really helped not only make this market viable and cheap enough but its also created heavy competition with companies making amazing devices that are almost as cheap and high quality. Before the Steam Deck these devices were many times more expensive and nowhere near this level of quality
If I drop my steam deck or rog ally on the floor they will break. If my drop my aya neo pro 2021 on the floor, it will break the floor. 😂 It might cost more but they are also more premium.
Eh the brick couldn’t even sell 5M and it’s because of its terrible design if they made it smaller or gave it a bigger screen maybe it would sell more .
this is the first handheld PC since the Steam deck that actually interests me. it's really the only one thats actually trying to push the boat out further than valve. But I probably won't pick one up until their heavily discounted on the second hand market in a few years
I'd also wait until I could just run SteamOS on this thing and have all of the features running. Not sure what the drivers for those controllers would look like. Not sure if we can map the Legion button to the 3 dot button of the Steam Deck, etc. When those problems are solved and I can run Linux on this thing, it will look way better to me.
@@Misfit626 When will you ever really utilize 32gb of RAM though? These devices haven't got to a point yet of being able to run AAA titles, max settings at high refresh rates. 9/10 times you're going to be running at a much lower resolution and using a mix of low - medium settings with FSR, 32GB RAM is null and void. Older games that can run on one of these devices at higher refresh rates, higher settings, still won't utilize 16GB RAM let alone 32GB RAM. RAM speed for a device like this is much more important than the amount of RAM. With regards to VRR, it seems like it's just a buzz word at this point, it gets thrown around a lot without the majority of people actually knowing what it is. Granted, it's a good feature, but when you factor in everything else the Legion Go has to offer, it's not really that much of a dealbreaker.
Free advice for Lenovo - the Legion L button opens the left menu, the Legion R button opens the right menu, and you press them both to open the full LegionSpace menu. I know it seems petty to complain about something as small as opening a menu, but that's just simple quality of life right there that needs to be addressed properly! Who presses a button in the hopes of getting one option vs. the other? That's just bad UX right there. Solid review, Rich. I feel if if I were to consider a Windows handheld, this would be a solid pick.
Gotta be sticking with my steamdeck and valve... on paper this thing looks absolutely rad, but after checking a bunch of reviews i see reports of various software issues - most damming is that the controllers dont stay paired... i am reminded of past experiences with lenovo products. They have annoying software bugs and poor customer service. Remember also lenovo is a chinese company. Valve or bust!
You know somthing i thought that was not a big deal at fist but it really really is just push a button and play not have to wait load overheat fans all that crap so your RIGHT
@@DrMrPersonGuy it's not very reliable though nor does it have good hardware integration, so it's not as good of an experience. I installed windows on my deck and found that to be the case anyway.
I think that 1600p screen is still awesome to run at 800p, because you get nice pixel doubling so it looks less blurry than running 800p on a 1080p/1200p screen.
I have the y700 gaming tablet and can tell you that screen (same panel used for the legion go) is BEAUTIFUL but the VRR absence is a literal deal breaker for me. I'd love to ditch my ally but the vrr is what keeps me coming back and not using my steam deck.
@@alexmcdaniel116 you know, it’s smart for battery life to not run an unlocked framerate anyway. I dunno why having to use vsync is so scary to you people that you’ll use an inferior device over it alone
@Emma_madison lmao didnt think i was crying but ok 🤣fsr is ok but vrr is king. always will be. you can enjoy your legion go, i hope you do, looks great, but no vrr=no buy for me. ill wait for a v2 hopefully with vrr. vrr is the sole reason i play my ally and dont touch my SD. buttery smooth, all the time. no frame hitches, hangs or stutters. idk how people think vrr is a gimick :shrug: not my loss. the switch is a p*ss poor example of a comparison btw, its like 10 years old and was underpowered from the start.
**really** good review! 👍👍👍 - 800p Benchmarks: Would've been nice to see how this compares against the steam deck with 800p benchmarks - Onscreen Keyboard: would've been nice to see how to type on this thing. I know with the Steam Deck, I really enjoy typing with the dual trackpads, so without the left-hand trackpad, it would confine me to tap typing with the touchscreen, or using the DPAD or Left Joystick to navigate the on-screen keyboard. Single trackpad is nice, but I really would've liked to see dual trackpads on this. Perhaps someone can make a left controller replacement that includes a trackpad! - HDR: Can this device do HDR? - 144hz: What is it like to game at 144hz? Is it Smooth? Does it kill battery life? I know even 2D sidescroller games like Steamworld Dig 2 would benefit substantially from the higher refresh rate. - Portrait Mode: For the games that did crash due to portrait mode, were you able to workaround this issue somehow by launching the game in Windowed mode, or modifying an INI file or registry file to get the game to run? - DPAD: You mentioned the DPAD is great! How does this work in games like Celeste where diagonal movement is super critical? I use a Dual Sense controller for 2D sidescrolling games that require accurate diagonal DPAD movement because when you press 2 directions simultaneously, you get a diagonal movement 100% of the time with confidence. This is something you simply don't get with the Steam Deck's DPAD and that's unfortunate. The Steam Deck's DPAD is very imprecise and you only get diagonal movements maybe 50% of the time, maybe 60% to 70% if you really practice it. - Screen Ghosting - I know the Steam Deck has a slight bit of ghosting especially noticeable in side scrolling games. It's really not a good screen. Does the Lenovo Legion Go's screen have any ghosting?
@Fan The Deck; your video review was on point. Already ordered mine. Can not wait. Was holding off on a gaming handheld for two years now. However, the Lenovo Legion Go, hands down, is the runner up. 1. Lenovo Legion Go 2. Steam Deck OLED 3. AYANEO (newest) 4. Asus Ally 5. Nintendo Switch OLED
It should be noted that the Z1E apu in both the Ally and Legion Go tends to see diminishing returns in most games after 18W, the difference between 20W/25W is very small. Doing a like for like wattage comparison would have been more fair for comparing performance and battery life
I know you spent a lot of time to review this and I respect that and watch all of your videos that come up on my feed. I must say that the legion box stuff wasnt covered very well, the fps game stuff wasnt super helpful besides just really broad strokes, frame time and resolution on the infographs really helps. I enjoyed the video up until the gaming fps and remarks about the legion experience. I just dont think they were detailed enough. It felt like a rushed video and I am very polite and dont want to offend, but I think this video could have used 2 or 3 more reworks to make it a very good video that competes with the likes of taki udon and retro. I hope this comment helps, I never leave comments and I want to see this channel improve.
Thank you for your great in-depth review. And for the comparison with the ally. 👍 I have an ally and a steam deck. I still don't think there is for me a justifiable reason to buy the Legion go. I bought the Ally because it was a obvious bump in performance to the Steam deck and it was lighter to hold. I'm happy that the legion go exists and I will be checking it in stores to see if it's something I would have a use-case for. Thanks. Great work!
I returned my 3rd ally a week ago and got the legion go delivered on Tuesday... Same price so no extra cost and it's a significant improvement in many ways over the ally. Performance obviously about the same but the bigger screens and what I consider much better ergonomics (and multiple back buttons on each side) It's a big step up and the only thing that needs some more work is their own software it's pretty bare bones compares to ally but honestly it's not something I need to interact with regularly so not a huge deal. Would like the sticks to work as as a page scroll ans the mouse like ally but they have their own alternative with the touch pad and and a scroll wheel.
@@TJ.85 good to hear that you are enjoying the Lenovo LG. Wait... 3rd ally or 3rd RMA ally?? 😅 I also heard most complains about the Go where with the software and fan noise. For me the Legion Go software being so unpolished as reports say is pretty disappointing. Even the ally's software, being unperfect as it was when it launched, had: per-game tdp/key mapping profiles, updated drivers, quiet fan, some sort of communication from asus team, you could assign a key combination to Xbox button, you could assign any button to a keyboard action. Of course, the Ally's SD card reader scandal is just unacceptable... I had upgrade the ssd to start enjoying the device and now I'm pretty happy. But man.... Lenovo really messed up this launch with the bad software and support for the device... I'm definitely waiting to see if Lenovo says something and steps up to support this device before I pull the trigger.
You're going to get better image quality out of an integer scaled 800p on a 1600p screen than you are running at 1200p, plus a significant performance boost or battery life gain depending on how you set your TDP. Not sure why the reviewer didn't even mention this as its one of the biggest benefits the Legion has over the competition.
Yeh the perfect integer scaling with 800p should have been mentioned. It will massacre the Steam Deck at the resolution in terms of performance at the same tdp, while having more battery life due to the 23% larger battery.
@@Trikkie87 This is completely wrong. 800p integer scales perfectly to 1600p. 1080p does not scale evently to 1600p so the image is going to be blurrier, even though it is higher resolution.
Been looking into handhelds and the alternatives to steamdeck look really good but I feel like SteamOS is such a huge QoL thing especially on the road. Still torn what to get. Also feels like something new is coming every month so the fear of getting buyer remorse is very real
Yeah, can't see myself moving off of SteamOS. I'm looking forward to the moment where more SteamOS devices will appear, or better support for it from those manufacturers with drives and stuff like that.
Awesome review, so on your test: 1080p vs 1200p is a 11.11% pixel increase and its doing well compared to the ROG Ally (20w Go vs 25w Ally) - looks like the 30w was bugged/early issue = hopefully they fix this soon for plugged in mode (release patch maybe) - My one ships on the 3rd from Lenovo - Can't wait. Going to be watching heaps of content on the GO until i get mine.
Awesome review my man, this device looks great; small software problems aside, but that’ll get fixed and improved with time. Thanks for making this as detailed as you did. It really made me excited for this handheld in a way I haven’t been since the steam deck! Keep being awesome!
Great review as always sir. I love that we’re getting more options, but steam OS is certainly the big draw other than price. I’ll hold onto my Deck for the time being! Probably will wait for a V2 at this point.
I'm with you. Valve stands alone on taking care of their customer. Them and toyota are a few of the companies I have a wholeheartedly positive opinion of.
Got a Steam Deck and a Ally. I'd feel more inclined to get this if it had different hardware than the Ally but not feeling it since it's the same. The detachable controller stuff seems neat but I have a Switch and the times I've ever used it on a flat surface with the joycons is probably less than 5. Handhelds for me are always a bed or couch thing and can't really lay a tablet and play comfortably like that. I think it's an interesting choice if you don't have any UMPCs though
I'm setting the legion go on my chest with the kick stand and playing with controllers in my hands by my side laying down in bed.... Works pretty great so far. Won't always play like this but when my arms need a bit of a break from being bent at the elbow so long it works great! I'm glad I got rid of the ally for this!!
I'm getting one of these in part with the Christmas money I get from parents and grandparents each year. Seems the perfect time as it will allow a couple of months for the software to get into a good state. The fact that 1600p is evenly divisible with 800p should be one of the devices biggest assets. I'll play undemanding indies at 1600p and demanding AAAs at 800p. Hopefully the detachable controllers will mean that if one of them develops a fault out of warranty, you can just buy a new controller instead of needing a completely new device. I also went for a Lenovo Legion for my new gaming laptop which will be here any time now. Might go for one of their tablets too with all the rewards points I'll have at Lenovo from my laptop and Legion Go purchases.
Bro take off the controllers and its a full tablet computer. I'm not huge on needing a ton of raw power so I'm selling my PC and laptop and replacing all these with just this Go.
@@ItsMrLee I do need the power of a gaming laptop too, but I can see where you're coming from. If I didn't play some fairly hardware demanding games (Starfield is my game of choice at the moment), I might do the same as you. As I've not used a Go yet I can't be sure, but I think it will be an 800p machine for the AAAs I play, which is fine handheld but not docked (I'd want 1080p medium or better before I even thought about selling my gaming laptop). In truth 75% of my gameplay on the Go will be indies, 25% AAAs and I'll mostly play it in handheld mode. Different machines for different purposes I guess.
I'd love to se how this works with a Thundebolt Docking (from Lenovo) and using this as both a productivity PC and a gaming PC/Handheld with external display, keyboard and mouse.
Great review thanks! If I had gotten an Ally, I think I’d be second-guessing my choice a bit. But having gotten a Deck, obviously I sacrificed a lot… but only paid half as much. Still loving my Deck.
FPS mode is cool, but when would anyone ever use it without being plugged into an external monitor and would likely already have a real mouse with them? Who wants to sit hunched over a 7in tablet staring down at it with a makeshift mouse? If that's the biggest reason to get this over another pc handheld I think it falls flat pretty hard.
Getting this alongside my Steam Deck. While I love the deck, I want this entire movement to grow. But I do hope for software improvements that sounds like a let-down so far.
It would be really great if the Legion Go is modular. Hopefully Lenovo and other third-party manufacturers will make different types/ configurations of detachable controllers to fit different control and play styles.
I have a friend who works for Lenovo and is currently testing these. So far they plan to introduce three types of controllers that will suit different ergonomic needs. Logitech are developing them as well but we won't see this until the next iteration by the looks of it.
To everyone here with steam decks. Pick her up, show her some love, let her know and help her feel secure about her place in your life even with the new girls on the block. Tell her “yes baby😘 they may have 1600’s but sweetie, I’m happy and content with your 800’s, FOREVER and ALWAYS❤
@@e.a6851 honestly dude. For $300 it runs everything but you will make sacrifices in settings for recent games.. and it’s inferior to the Ally and Go. And I would lean on getting the GO because the trackpad is crucial for windows.. but a steam deck for $300 is completely worth the price for everything it does… which is everything, just barely… it’s great for experimenting with too. I had MK1 running on a switch emulator at 60fps but it cuts down to 30fps every time a cameo fighter is on screen. The steam deck really only shows it’s flaws on anything above 800p😒
This looks really neat, especially the mouse mode. That is one thing that IF I was going to grab a different handheld PC, this would probably be the one.
Great review! At last we saw the performance of the Go. Great feedback on the fps mode. I think it's really better than the Ally and the deck coz of the things that it can do. I'm really excited to get mine 🤩🤩
This one is perticularly good for those who play fps. But using it like this makes me wonder if i could live with a 7840h laptop, which is similarly priced and larger and with more juice (in terms of battery). Go is too heavy for a handheld. I also heard there will soon be 8040-based amd tablets (13.5-inch) coming up.
For people with kids this beats steam deck. My kids can't play Roblox or Genshin Impact with steam deck without doing a bunch of work arounds only found in the depths of youtube that's a nogo on steam deck for the kids. I'm sure a lot of parents agree with that. I like the concept of cloud gaming but I am in too many places where internet is garbage that's just not happening. So this device is getting serious interest from me. The fact my kids can just plug it into tv in their room to play there and then bring it somewhere else like the family room or basement where monitors are set up to play together and not feel lonely when they are not annoyed by each other's presence is also great.
Thank you for the superb review!. I received the Lenovo Legion today and will test it starting tomorrow. I have the Steam Deck and had a Rod Ally. I'm hoping the Legion will be my go to portable , as I just prefer as big a screen as I can get, added in with that 800p being a nice sweetspot where settings can be raised higher then the Ally's 1080p. I really thought the Ally was my best option but the right trigger was not registering my presses and even DF noted this issue. Plus that 7" screen was just too small (for me) overall. I'm really hoping the Legion is the perfect balance/combo of the SD and RA. Having said all that, each of these portables has pros and cons. SD is the most console like as far as not dealing with Windows hassles. However it's limited to Steam, so no Gamepass or other launchers will work ootb. The Ally is the most compact portable, great screen, and vrr, and good performance all add to a superb portable. But it's battery drains really fast, as in 60 minutes on a full charge. The Legion, has the best performance (by a bit), biggest screen, fps mode, longer battery, most versatile. However it's not as portable due to size, and missing vrr. Honestly, I love the SD for playing older games that don't support controllers (Deus Ex, Condemned, HL2, ect), and the Ally or Legion for more demanding games along with the option for over 60+ fps gaming. But personally, I'm hoping the Legion will tick all boxes for me and I love the large screen, battery, and versatility. And I'd much rather deal with Windows then proton of the SD.
You and me? I think we may be clones of each other... We have the exact same history with these systems and the same opinions on why one is better than another... It's like freaking me out a bit almost like I wrote this myself from an alternate time line or something!! Crazy!! But yea replaced ally with LG still have the deck and feel like LG is best for me for exact same reasons and drawbacks to SD are the exact same for me. Dealing with windows is just better to me than limitations of steam os So awesome yet weird to find someone exactly like me!! 🤣🤣🤣
@TJ.85 Thanks! That's awesome how you think. It's like replying back to...me! 🤣 Heck, feel free to PM me if you wish. I'm curious on you're thoughts about these portables. I'm starting my YT channel soon, adding in my opinions and review of these portables..games, ect. What's you're take so far on the Legion Go? I've been busy since I received it yesterday but will open it(finally) tomorrow. I'm really interested on you're opinions on not just the LG but also the SD and RA..ect Thanks again!
The biggest issue with these Windows handhelds is, that they are not consoles, like the steam deck. And you always have to go through the hassle with the windows experience + updates. I like the ego shooter mode tho. But let´s be honest. Just like Asus, Lenovo is going to dump this thing in the end. That´s why the steam deck will always be superior.
As someone looking into getting either the Steam Deck OLED or the Legion GO as a first handheld PC, I am really impressed by both it's usability as a Windows PC and this review! A great job on this video. However I am still leaning more towards the Steam Deck for Development and overall enjoyment sake. The tablet mode of the Go is also a very compelling feature for both more relaxed gaming, FPS mode and for media consumption. A tough choice to make as a newcomer to this new PC segment xD
I’m also lol the windows based , the screen size , the performance on the legion is tempting But the steam deck oleds features , battery , screen , ease of use is becoming more appealing regardless of performance 😆👍
I see alot of people say that they need to give thanks to Valve for getting a PC gaming experience handheld which is true but i think the real thanks believe or not is the Wii U. I say this because it introduced console gaming portable which the Switch built upon and eventually inspired Valve
The ROG Ally sounds fuller and the screen is a lot better. VRR is also give you perceived smoothness is games even a lower FPS. It's that reason why I want VRR.
I think VRR is overrated, about screen, technically it is better than Rog Ally, better res, better color accuracy, better refresh rate. In any case Asus did an excellent job and performance are so close, so it’s just about your use preference at this point.
@@AtrusDesigndo you already try rog ally, vrr is no joke. from many year i complain gameplay 30fps - 40fps but with vrr, i realize i can tolerate those gameplay., 144hz for what if mainly play at 70fps in low resolution setting. 😂
Can you feel the input lag when using the "Mouse" in FPS mode? I can't find latency numbers anywhere. Do you know if it's using bluetooth for the mouse?
I really like this one (compared to the Ally), but as much performance as this one has over the Deck, I still can't see myself justifying buying it, and that's because of one and only one reason: Windows. If Valve would announce that these handhelds will be compatible with steamOS I'd be the first one to buy one, but as it is right now, I really don't want to get a handheld to deal with Windows. It's frustrating enough on my PC. That's what I think pushes me towards the Deck: console-like OS and it's half as expensive. Because otherwise this is better in every single other aspect.
@@Kaylas1821 I haven't seen many of those or people complaining about them. Windows is just a pain in the ass, and it consumes so many resources just because, and battery. I just think a proper simplified minimalistic OS would be much better. steamOS is the best one out there, but if a better one releases, then that one.
@@argentinaomuerte i had the opposite experience. Though i agree that for handhelds windows must be simplified. But still it has more games supported out of the box rather than tweaking a lot of things just to get it run.
@@Kaylas1821 oh yeah, the much bigger library is a plus for sure. But the thing is with how much community support the Deck has even setting that up is much easier. Another factor that stops me is that I know Valve will give the Deck support for the years to come, but idk how much Lenovo/Asus will care about these consoles in year or two
Had the steam deck great machine but the fact you can't play certain game killed it for me. So picked a rog currently in for repair after 6weeks. Considering a change again 😅
The problem I find with all these other portable gaming devices compared to the Steam Deck is that it's not working, Valve were smart enough to know that to crack this market, you have to have a low price and an easy-to-use OS setup, none of these other devices deliver on that. There's also another major factor, battery life, it's all well and good throwing more performance at a portable device, but not if it means battery life is bad. Valve with the Steam Deck are pushing on the limits of battery life as it is, especially with triple a games, with a portable device, it's a fine balance from performance and battery life, Valve seem to be doing a better job because they followed the Nintendo model of doing things. Does anyone remember in the early 90's with the Game Boy? There were many other portable gaming devices with better hardware specs, the Game Boy blew them all away, even thought it was by far the weakest of the bunch, battery life was key, Nintendo got that right, it looks like Valve are targeting that area, the others are trying to brute force with more power and I don't see them being a threat to Valve at all until they change tactics. Basically, Valve has the entire package, even thought it's one of the weaker gaming devices, it's selling far more and that's because of price to performance, support with SteamOS and battery life. If these rivals are going to compete, they are going to need a lower price point, they are going to need to work on ease of use a lot, something Valve is doing much better through SteamOS, and then there's battery life, throwing 30 watts at a device might sound impressive, but not if the battery goes flat too quickly and with current tech, I think 15-20 watts is the best we can do whiles having decent battery life, anything else is pointless unless docked. With all that said, I do like some of the creative things being done with the Legion, something Valve should look into with the next Steam Deck and whiles I don't see these rivals as a threat to the Steam Deck for now, that threat will go as time goes on and the performance gap grows, unless the Steam Deck gets a lot cheaper or another Steam Deck with better specs is released, which I suspect is likely in 2025, but at the end of the day, for most gamers, the real selling point of the Steam Deck over these rivals is the low price point and SteamOS, which is ironic, who would have thought Linux would be a selling point for running Windows games? but here we are.
Agreed. Asus, Lenovo just do a hot RGB powerhouse on Windows that is not designed for small portatives, all packed with bells and whistles while Valve just does an affordable and working "gaming horse" with good UI and ecosystem.
@@XKitsuneX666 haven't had any experience with Lenovo at all. If that is the case, that is sad. That's the reason I have stuck with the steam deck because of the support both Valve and the community give it.
Awesome review. I had the deck now have the Ally which I love. This looks compelling for the big screen but I really love the Ally, I’ve had nothing but a great experience. Having a switch, I’ve never used it in tabletop mode so this is more of a niche market IMO.
Much more enticing and interesting than the ROG Ally imo. Feels like it has its own reason to be here, the ROG felt like it was just relevant for being a more affordable windows device which is still true but if I were to get a luxury windows handheld this one just has way more features and feels like it serves more of a purpose. I am a Steam Deck owner though and windows on a handheld is personally a turn off but despite that the legion go based on your review really has my interest and seems like a pretty sweet gaming computer for someone living out of a suitcase.
I am thoroughly disappointed that the screen is 144hz. Because 120hz is objectively better for handhelds. Since we can only achieve butter-smooth frame pacing when the FPS is an exact division of the refresh rate, this means the Legion Go can only get smooth pacing at 72, 48, and 36 fps. If the screen were 120hz, we’d instead have smooth pacing at 60, 40, and 30fps, which are more standard and support emulation a lot better. 120hz would’ve been perfect and we wouldn’t even need to switch to 60hz manually. 120hz would also mean it wouldn’t be necessary to have per-game refresh rate settings. Just lock the fps in-game to 30, 40, or 60 and that’s it. What a HUGE missed opportunity by Lenovo.
My pre-order's on the way, but not being able to run a 30W TDP correctly could be a potential dealbreaker, especially while on AC power. I realize higher TDPs have diminishing returns, but Lenovo promised 30W and I'm fully expecting that. Hope they fix this soon. I'd also prefer if the Legion buttons switched places with the menu and view buttons. Not a big deal, but I hope they're remappable. Everything else about this handheld looks very promising. Thinking it's only a matter of time before someone releases a 3D printable controller dock, too, if Lenovo doesn't release one of their own.
@@blackydevils I think that was a month or two back where Lenovo basically admitted that was a mistake. Fingers crossed for the TDP to actually be fully unlocked per the APU's max target, but I'm not counting on it.
Great review! I think the most interesting thing for me in this device is the 16:10 screen and resolution. The screen effectively has a 2:1 ratio with 1280x800 (the Steam Deck's res). I'd probably play everything in 800p for more fps or battery life and it'd probably still look really good.
The ROG has much better sounding speakers. And VRR is a NoBrainer to me. Comfy and console-feeling-wise (also the price) the Steam Deck has absolutely no competition. But I think each device fits has is own strengths
If they want to use one button for two different slide out menus, I'd recommend to make the right side menu to show up on a single press & the left one for a longpress
I've got the ally already and since getting it, it's been incredible performance wise and has come a long way in updates since it's release. The one thing that it sucked on was battery life. Playing an indie game like blasphemous or sea of stars only nets me 2.5-3 hours at 10watts 1080p for example. In your limited testing have you noticed an improvement on that end with the legions battery life? also playing game without vrr do you also notice a difference on that end?
I haven't used the Legion however I play my Ally every day, and every video I watch about the legion I immediately notice the lack of VRR and the extra 9wh will probably net you another 35-45 minutes at 1200p.
i like the bigger screen and that it has a track pad for windows but im not sure i trust Lenovo like i trust Steam for improving the software as time goes on, Steam seems into Deck long term support while Asus and the rest only see value in how much money the device will bring in in till they replace it with something else
@Emma_madison its the same CPU and GPU as the Ally so meh its nothing new, you gain frame rate at the cost of more heat and shorter battery life. I just want a bigger screen
@@nosidepressure We'll see. I doubt very much that they will change the display since this can't be fixed with software. If they are using a portrait display this late, I doubt they will change it.
I'm wondering how easy it is to reinstall the OS after upgrading the SSD, the Ally automatically recognizes a new drive installed and will have you connect to wifi and reinstall the OS and have it properly configured in a fresh out of the box unit. GPD Win 4 has a file you download and extract onto a usb flashdrive, insert the flashdrive into the Win 4's usb port, turn the device on and boot into the flashdrive and it will format and install the OS and all it's drivers onto the new ssd. So if Lenovo were to have a setup scheme in place to make it easy to setup and reconfigure a new M.2, that would be a welcoming feature to have. Aya Neo forces you to first install the OS then install all it's required drivers one at a time or use a program to clone the original drive's OS to the new M.2.
Another amazing handheld device using that dog shit buggy OS called windows. When will these companies use an actual OS besides windows for their devices. This device will have all kinds of issues just like the rog ally. No thanks, i prefer my steam deck.
this is my upgrade over the steam deck, its everything I have wanted, better screen, detachable controllers, and the big one for me is the screen being 1600p instead of 1080p, this allows for perfect integer scaling from 800p, which will look a billion times better then 800p on a 1080p screen, 800p is my go to resolution on a device this size, anything more is sacrificing to much performance for me, Ive been waiting for a Z1 extreme handheld with an 800p screen but this is even better then that, integer scaling is the best form of upscaling, I wouldn't even use FSR with it, the issue is that integer scaling only works with resolutions that are a perfect factor of 2x, so in this case its double 800p, this is what kept me away from the ROG ally, 1080p is losing to much performance and 800p looks worse then the deck because its having to upscale to 1080p since the display can not natively run in 800p (or in this case 720p since the rog ally is a 16:9 display) when a display is run in a lower then native resolution it upscales the image, you cant get rid of pixels so the display upscales to the native resolution, and as I said the best and honestly only good form of display upscaling is integer
32gb 7500mhz and a litle smaller and I would go for it. For the size I go with Rog tablet or a laptop. But 16gb shared ram is a litle short you will be always swapping file with the ssd and that my friends...it will be stutter hell
Legion Go will undoubtedly be strictly faster than the Rog Ally (Assuming the same resolution. Note tthe tests here were 1200p vs 1080p due to the 16/10 aspect ratio, so the Legion Go is pushing more pixels) since they have the exact same Z1 Extreme, but the Legion Go has the faster Lpddr5x at 7500mhz which is notable advantage over Lpddr5 6400 mhz when it comes to Apu's. Keep in mind this is prerelease drivers and the like, in the coming days and weeks I'd expect the Legion Go to get faster and more polished, and quirks like the issue with 30w performance will be solved. Lenovo is pretty damn reliable and has many decades of experience, I doubt they will drop the ball. Hard to imagine a better Handheld from 2023 than the Legion Go. It ticks all the right boxes and is the only Handheld that by itself is great for Fps shooters due to the combination of : 144Hz refresh rate on a massive 8'8 screen, detachable controllers, and the unique Vertical Mouse from the controller. This gives the Legion Go extra flexibility and versatility, putting it Unmatched in it's class.
Great review BUT why didn’t you do performance comparisons at the same resolution against the ROG and SD? It would be really useful to know how much better the frame rates are on a like-for-like basis.
As he did mention in the video, the native screen resolutions are different, and not all games support lowering their screen resolutions, as he did specifically take time to say.
Totally understand that you wanted comparisons to the steam Deck. I did over 100 benchmarks and then I did many of them again and I'm only one person with one week to review so I had to choose what I was going to test. I didn't prioritize testing against Deck. Perhaps someone else will.
Thanks for the early and thorough review. Well this is now the best handheld gaming PC for price at this point of time. ROG Ally is still a good device, but the cons you mentioned like speakers and fan noise will be irrelevant in the typical use case for a handheld gaming device, i.e. in a public place or during trips where you will likely be using headphones anyway. There is one pro you should have mentioned is the extra thunderbolt port this device has compared to the ROG Ally. That and the larger display and battery can essentially make this a replacement for small laptops even. SteamDeck is not even a competitor at this point. I understand existing SteamDeck owners will get upset at that and make up excuses to hate on it like how SteamDeck is still better because SteamOS vs Windows. However that is objectively incorrect as the performance difference is nullified due to the better processor and larger battery. And Windows comes with numerous advantages such as much greater compatibility, and years and years of existing plethora of applications, features, community experience etc. And that right controller trick is just ingenious. AND Steam has done a terrible job at availability (SteamDeck is still impossible to buy in many regions, and impossible with warranty and without import costs in other regions), something both Asus and Legion are much better at. My only suggestion to Lenovo will be that they release another version with a lower resolution screen, that will further maximize battery, much more so than playing at lower resolution on higher resolution display. And really, on a tiny PC like this most games will be near unplayable anyway at 1600p.
I would love a smaller version of this. I love the kickstand and detachable controllers with FPS mode. Honestly if they were able to make this but with a smaller screen that brings it more in line with the ROG Ally in size and weight, I’d be all on board.
The fact that you said the trackpad is not meant for gaming makes me feel better about just getting a steam deck recently. I think the detachable controllers are really neat, I would take advantage of the tablet by itself often enough, but I don’t know I would care about playing a game with them detached. It looks really cool and I’m glad handheld pcs are growing in popularity.
As much as I think the legion go is needed in this space. Currently the Ally is still king for me. Currently nothing at its size that does it like the Ally. Top notch performance, ASUS has updated this thing like 4 times in the past month alone, and hyper rx and fsr 3 is supported natively on the rog Ally. Ally is a much more focused experience
