When we first saw Lenovo announcing multiple new handhelds at CES in January, we were excited. Handheld gaming PCs are changing the gaming market by bringing the PC gaming experience to a wider audience.
First, there was the Legion Go 2, which would be a powerful successor to the original Legion Go that was unveiled in September 2023.
The second new handheld was the Legion Go S, which would be sold at a more affordable price point. Additionally, there would be a SteamOS version of the Lenovo Legion Go S, which would be significantly lower in price than its Windows counterpart.
When Laptop Mag reviewed the Windows version of the Legion Go S and its underpowered AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chipset a few weeks later, we were underwhelmed by its poor performance, giving the handheld 3 out of 5 stars.
Our gaming experience on the Legion Go S was poor enough to recommend the Steam Deck in its stead, but there were other models of the Legion Go S still to come.
Between the SteamOS variant and the Ryzen Z1 Extreme models, could there still be hope for the Legion Go S?
We may get our answer sooner than expected. On May 25, 2025, all variants of the Legion Go S will go on sale (and are up for preorder now.)
The only problem? The price.
The base SteamOS Lenovo Legion Go S with the Z2 Go chipset will cost $549.
A SteamOS Lenovo Legion Go S with a more powerful AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor starts at $749.
Finally, the highest configuration of the Z1 Extreme processor — which comes in the Windows Legion Go S and not the SteamOS handheld — will cost $829.
Which leaves us with some questions.
Is a Ryzen Z1 Extreme handheld really worth $749 in 2025?
Handheld gaming PCs are still a bargain compared to a budget gaming laptop. And they're incredibly cheap when priced against the best gaming laptops on the market.
But $749 to $829 for a handheld using a two-year-old chipset — the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme was released in June 2023 — is a tough pill to swallow. Especially when the Valve Steam Deck is just $399.
While some handhelds using the Z1 Extreme processor have still won our hearts, like the Asus ROG Ally X, the Legion Go S is intended to be the affordable handheld.
Sure, the Z2 Go SteamOS version starts at $549, but that's still more expensive than picking up the Steam Deck and a solid microSD for additional storage. And that Legion Go S uses a less powerful chip than even the base Steam Deck that runs on an AMD Ryzen Z1 chip.
It's even more difficult to justify the price of any Legion Go S model when compared to the original Lenovo Legion Go, which started at $699 and is often on sale for $600 or less.
If you've got the budget for a more expensive handheld, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ has a larger 8-inch screen and better gaming performance. Laptop Mag gave the $899 version 4.5 stars.
And finally, the rest of the Ryzen Z2 chipset generation is still inbound — so there may be reason to wait.
And what of the Ryzen Z2 and Z2 Extreme?
AMD announced the Ryzen Z2 generation of handheld CPUs at CES in January. So far, we've only seen the Ryzen Z2 Go appear in the initial Legion Go S.
It isn't a surprise that we've seen the entry-level Ryzen Z2 chip first.
AMD's Ryzen Z2 Go chip is built on the older Zen 3 architecture and features lower core counts and memory cache. This makes the Z2 Go more affordable than the Z2 or Z2 Extreme, and it may be easier to manufacture.
We know AMD and Lenovo plan to put the more powerful Zen 5-based Z2 Extreme in a future Legion Go 2 later this year. While working prototypes of that handheld were shown at CES, the new high-end Legion handheld doesn't have an official price or release date yet.
The Legion Go 2 could come out in "the second half of 2025," according to comments made by Lenovo in January 2025 at CES.
While the Z1 Extreme version of the Legion Go S will fix one of our major complaints about the original model, it is pricey.
$749 for a handheld using a two-year-old processor isn't really worth it when you can pick up the original Legion Go for less than that, as it's often on sale.
Or you can wait on the more powerful Legion Go 2.
At this point, it is hard to figure out why anyone would buy any model of the Legion Go S right now when there are other, better choices out there.
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