The Windows handheld console race is starting to heat up in India. While there wasn't technically a real market for handheld consoles even a year ago, we now have options from big players like Asus, MSI, and Lenovo. Yes, you can get your hands on other handheld consoles online, such as the Steam Deck OLED or Ayaneo, but these aren't officially available. You can just buy Asus ROG Ally or MSI Claw A1M in India without worrying about service and spare parts.
Now, you can also get your hands on the Lenovo Legion Go. It is the latest Windows portable console to hit the Indian market and offers better features than Asus and MSI. Are these better features enough to buy the Legion Go? Can you play AAA titles? How long does the battery last? Is it more portable than a laptop? After spending about a week testing the Legion Go, here's what I think.
Lenovo Legion Go Price in India
The Lenovo Legion Go will be available in India from July 1 for Rs. 89,990. You can only have it in a Shadow Black color option and currently only one variant (512GB SSD) is available in India. Fortunately, the storage is upgradeable.
The carrying case is large and does not fit the charger
Lenovo provides a nice big carrying case for the Legion Go, a 65W charger (you can't fit it inside the carrying case), and a controller dock.
Lenovo Legion Go Review: Design and Display
The Legion Go is big and heavy (854g) for a handheld. Lenovo has tried to include all kinds of features and controls in the device. You get a nice big display on the front protected by Gorilla Glass 5 and controllers on both sides. Thanks to the way the handheld is designed, you can use it in different ways. You can use it like a traditional handheld with the controllers attached. If you find it too heavy, which it will after about half an hour of use, you can detach the controllers, remove the stand from the back and continue playing.
The support of the Legion Go is adjustable to several levels
Detachable drivers are something you won't find on the competition, and I'm thankful Lenovo thought of that. I'll talk a little more about the controllers.
The rear houses the intake grille with the exhaust port at the top. You'll also find the power button, a 3.5mm headphone port, a microSD card slot, a USB Type-C port, volume buttons and dual speakers on the top.
The two USB Type-C ports support Power Delivery 3.0 and DisplayPort 1.4
The bottom of the Legion Go has another USB Type-C port. The best thing about the handheld is that both USB Type-C ports are USB 4.0 and support Power Delivery 3.0 and DisplayPort 1.4. You can plug in an eGPU or even a monitor and turn it into a desktop computer.
Let's talk about this great show. The Legion Go has the largest screen in the segment. It has an 8.8-inch QHD+ IPS display with a 144Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness. The screen is very bright for indoor gaming. The screen is vibrant, has a great touch response rate, and is big enough to see what you're doing in Windows 11. Lenovo claims the panel also meets 97 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Gameplay is smooth and enjoyable in Legion Go, thanks to the 144Hz refresh rate. The glass covering the screen is glossy and catches fingerprints easily.
The Legion Go has the largest screen in the Windows notebook segment
Speaking of fingerprints, the Legion Go's smooth matte finish also attracts fingerprints and oil smudges. While cleaning the screen is easy, getting rid of all the body smudges is a chore.
Lenovo Legion Go Review: Drivers
As I mentioned at the beginning, Lenovo has tried to cram a lot of controls into the Legion Go. Sometimes it can be a little too much, but it's also nice to have in some rare cases. You get hall-effect joysticks on the controllers, which are great for gaming. Both controllers are also detachable, which I found very useful when playing for more than half an hour. A push of a button and a downward slide action let you separate the controllers, but it's harder than it looks.
Detaching the controllers isn't very easy, but reattaching them is
The left controller has the Legion Space key in the upper right corner, the L/S click joystick, a D-pad, and the Menu and View buttons at the bottom. I didn't find the bottom placement of the Menu and View buttons very useful, as they are hard to reach in some games. On the back and top, you'll find more buttons, such as trigger, LB, and Y1 and Y2, which you can assign to various actions.
The right controller has a quick settings button in the upper left corner, the R/S click joystick, A/B/X/Y keys, and a small trackpad that can double as a mouse. It also has the right trigger on top, M1 and M2 keys on the side, another button on top and a scroll wheel, M3 and Y1 keys on the back.
There are a lot of buttons on the controllers, but it might be too much
The right controller also has a cool little secret. You will find a button at the bottom that says FPS mode. Toggling this will allow you to use the controller as a vertical mouse. All you have to do is unplug the controller, mount it on the included controller base, switch to FPS mode, and start shooting the site (in-game, obviously). I only used the controller in FPS mode once though, as it's much easier to use as a normal controller.
FPS mode is not something you use often
The controllers have a nice feel and offer a good grip. You do end up pressing some of the buttons accidentally when you pick up the Legion Go, but luckily those buttons don't do anything outside of a game.
Lenovo Legion Go Review: Specs and Software
The specifications of the Legion Go are quite similar to those of the Asus ROG Ally. Get an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU with AMD Radeon RDNA 3 graphics, 16GB LPDDR5x-7500 RAM, and up to 1TB M.2 2242 SSD storage. The RAM is not upgradeable, but you can install an M.2 2242 drive to add more storage. You also get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 for wireless connectivity.
The Legion Go houses a 49.2Whr battery, with the controllers housing 900mAh batteries each.
The Legion Space software needs some polishing, but it's an easy way to switch things up on your handheld
Moving on to software, the handheld runs Windows 11 Home out of the box. You also have Legion Space software, which lets you change performance modes, customize settings on other devices, and act as a central hub for all your games. You can also use the quick settings button on the right controller to change resolution and power modes, change the refresh rate, and adjust all sorts of system settings.
I'll be honest: Windows 11 is not designed for laptops. Microsoft needs to do something about it, or OEMs need to create their own custom laptop OS. However, the Legion Go's 8.8-inch screen made the Windows experience less frustrating.
Lenovo Legion Go review: Performance
Now, let's look at how Legion Go performs in games. While you can play AAA titles on your handheld, don't expect high frame rates and Ultra graphics. It still comes with a mobile chipset that can't deliver that kind of performance. You have three power modes on the Legion Go, each offering a different TDP. In custom mode, you can get up to 30W TDP from the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme, and this is where you'll find the best frame rates in gaming. You also get a silent, balanced and performance mode. I ran the device in performance mode while gaming and it delivered 20W of TDP.
You get three preset modes and custom modes with a maximum TDP of 30W
I ran a couple of benchmarks and played several games including Hogwarts Legacy, Far Cry 6, Snowrunner and a couple of other indie titles. With games like Hogwarts Legacy and Far Cry 6, I had to lower the refresh rate and set the resolution to 1080p or lower to achieve smooth gameplay. I got 50-55 fps in Hogwarts Legacy on low graphics and about the same in Far Cry 6 on high.
In benchmarks like PCMark 10, the Legion Go scored 5,907 points, while in 3DMark, the laptop scored 3,042 in the Time Spy benchmark test. Overall, the Lenovo console offers good gaming performance.
Playing AAA titles is not as much fun as playing less demanding games
When it comes to cooling, the Legion Go does a good job of keeping heat away from your hands. It has a single fan setup, which gets loud enough to drown out the dual speakers when placed close to the fan.
Lenovo Legion Go review: Battery life
The Legion Go's battery life isn't great at all. If you're playing AAA titles, you can expect 1-2 hours of continuous playback. Lighter games and indie titles will allow you to increase the battery life to around 3 hours. The 49.2Wh battery isn't big enough for long hours of gaming. I also noticed that the drop from 20% to 5% is pretty quick. The sleep function is non-existent. I would constantly wake up at night with the device randomly turning on with the fan spinning at full speed. But it's most likely a Windows problem, not a Lenovo problem.
You can get more battery life by playing lower resolution games on low settings
As for charging, it took me about an hour and a half to fully charge the Legion Go from scratch, and a 10-minute charge gave the handheld 25 percent battery, which isn't really enough to play.
Lenovo Legion Go review: Verdict
The only two official competitors of the Lenovo Legion Go in the Indian market are the Asus ROG Ally and the MSI Claw. As we saw in our Asus ROG Ally review, the Legion Go performs similarly in both gaming and other scenarios. It's only slightly better when it comes to higher fps in games. We haven't tested the MSI Claw, but I don't expect it to perform any better than the Lenovo.
Lenovo's Legion Go shines with its bright screen and good performance despite offering too many buttons on its controllers. It's also very large, and even more so when you place it inside its box. You'll need an entire backpack to carry the thing. Instead, you can use this backpack to carry a decently specced gaming laptop, which should be easily available at Rs. 89,990.
The Legion Go is great if you want a Windows laptop that will be used primarily at home. If it were me, I'd wait for the next iteration. If you have the money, go for it as it is a fun gadget. Is it the best portable console? No, but it is definitely the best Windows laptop currently available in India as there is not much competition at the moment.
Advantages:
- Excellent display
- good performance
- Detachable controllers
- Good build quality
- Can play many PC games
Cons:
- voluminous
- Average battery life
- Windows 11 operating system
Ratings (out of 10)
- Design: 8
- Display: 9
- Software: 7
- Performance: 9
- Battery life: 6
- Value for money: 7
- Total: 8
