Lenovo Legion Go review: I want to love it, but I can't

Summary

• The Lenovo Legion Go falls short of its competition due to subpar performance and software issues.
• The device suffers from glitches, controller discomfort, and random software problems that affect gameplay.
• The Legion Go is currently a half-baked product and cannot compete with other gaming handheld options.

Gaming handhelds have been all the rage over the past year, with the Steam Deck leading the charge and companies like Ayaneo, Asus, and Lenovo all wanting a slice of the pie. We've put two gaming handhelds from Ayaneo through the ringer already, and for my money, the Ayaneo Kun is the best out there. The Asus ROG Ally is also good, but it has a few issues that prevent it from taking the top spot. Now that Lenovo is here with the Legion Go, how does it fare?

I will preface this by saying that I wanted to love the Legion Go. I tested it at this year's IFA, but I was more excited to give it a whirl in my own environment with my own games. Sadly, it feels like Lenovo released the Legion Go far too early. It feels like a half-baked product that took a great idea and couldn't see it through. It's nowhere near as polished as the other options, with weird software problems and random glitches. We even discovered numerous performance problems with Cyberpunk: 2077 that prompted me to contact Lenovo, and a spokesperson confirmed my findings.

We'll likely revisit this review in the future if Lenovo improves performance (the ROG Ally and Steam Deck weren't perfect at launch, either). We're hopeful that Lenovo can fix the Legion Go soon, but for now, it's a gaming handheld that can't compete.

About this review: Lenovo sent us the Legion Go for the purposes of this review, and it had no input into its contents.

Lenovo Legion Go: Pricing and availability

The Lenovo Legion Go is available globally and can be purchased in the U.S. through Lenovo, Best Buy, Amazon, and other major retailers. It's available for purchase now and starts at $700 for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but for an additional $50, you can get 1TB of storage instead. This puts it right in line with the Asus ROG Ally, while boasting more storage.

Design and build quality

Cheaply made in some ways

Lenovo has managed to target a similar price target to the Asus ROG Ally with more features inside, and I think part of how the company has achieved that is through the build quality. For the parts that matter, like the stand and the joysticks, Lenovo has invested money into good-quality materials. However, for other aspects of this handheld, particularly the hard plastic shell used for the controllers, the device feels cheap.

The Legion Go's biggest selling point in its design is the detachable controllers, which promise a Switch-like experience. I haven't had much of an issue with that, but the controllers are needlessly difficult to disconnect and then keep connected to the handheld. Due to the positioning of the right controller as well, trying to disconnect it often in results in accidentally pressing down the power button as it's where my other hand will naturally grip, which is also frustrating. The controllers take a second to connect and disconnect, but it's been a seamless experience that you can tell Lenovo put a lot of time into.

It's been a seamless experience that you can tell Lenovo put a lot of time into

Where the Legion Go has a leg-up over competitors is the rest of its design. The kickstand has a great range of angles that it works at, something that I criticized the Ayaneo Kun for its lackluster stand in comparison. It's quite similar to the stand of the Nintendo Switch OLED, and it's incredibly sturdy. The Legion Go also has the ability to turn the right controller into a joystick-style mouse, with a tracking sensor at the bottom and a puck that magnetically attaches to it. It's not going to be something you use in games like VALORANT or anything, but it's great for certain styles of games, such as Powerwash Simulator.

As for the buttons, the D-Pad feels quite mushy, and I've also found, due to the sheer size of the controllers, that it's very easy to accidentally click the side buttons when using them detached. The controller battery life seems to be pretty good and can outlast the device itself from my testing, but for most people, I suspect that they'll be a gimmick. They're certainly a welcome gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless.

Lenovo's intelligent design when it comes to the display, though, shines through, as there's a reason they've included a 1600p screen. It's a high-resolution display and looks great, and for games that you need to play at lower resolutions, such as 800p, they'll divide neatly onto this display. Games can sometimes look weird when scaled onto a display that's not a multiple of the original resolution, for example, playing 800p on a 1080p display.

Software

A complete and utter mess

Where to begin with the Lenovo Legion Go's software? I've spoken to death about how bad the software experience typically is on many Windows handhelds, so I was pleasantly surprised when, out of the box, the Legion Go had the display scaling modified to better suit a smaller screen. I expected with that initial level of attention to detail I was in for a good time.

Good god was I wrong.

The Legion Go packs a software suite dubbed "Legion Space", and it functions exactly the same way as the likes of AYA Space on Ayaneo devices and Armory Crate on the Asus ROG Ally. This is nothing out of the ordinary, and it packs an overlay that you can use to modify TDP and other settings while in a game, along with a dedicated launchpad to start your applications from. Even in Legion Space, you can download different game stores like Rockstar, Epic Games, and Steam, which was also a pretty good sign. Spoiler alert: the good signs end there.

I quickly noticed that there didn't seem to be any options in Legion Space for updating the drivers of the device. I had already run through all of the available Windows updates, so I assumed that everything had already been pulled in. Sitting down to enjoy some Spider-Man, I was greeted with a warning telling me that my drivers were out of date and there may be problems with how the game runs. Strange, I thought, as I figured that I had already updated everything that I needed to.

At this point, I set about trying to install new drivers on the Legion Go, and I discovered just how much of a mess that actually is. I first installed AMD Adrenaline... or tried to, anyway. It would install the AMD Chipset Drivers, reboot, and I would be back to square one. I again checked for updates in Windows Updates, and it didn't work either. The pre-installed AMD app had told me that the drivers installed were not compatible with the AMD app (what?), and I was at a loss. I then finally checked the Legion Go support page (which is quite difficult to find on Lenovo's website, by the way), and I was able to download the "latest AMD drivers" for the Legion Go.

Installing this, the error for Spider-Man went away, so I was at least content with the latest drivers... or so I thought. Let me just stop at this point and say that thinking things are fine, followed by them being very much not fine, is a running theme with the Lenovo Legion Go.

I installed Call of Duty and went to launch it, and faced essentially the same error, telling me that my drivers were out of date. The game still launches and runs at least (to be fair, so did Spider-Man), but how difficult should it be to update drivers on a handheld? Why is it this cumbersome? The Legion Space app feels like where all of this should be, but it just isn't.

If the problems ended there, it wouldn't be as much of a big deal. While a rollercoaster, in theory, you could install drivers and then play your games without having to worry much about them again for another while. However, the problems don't stop there at all.

Remember I mentioned the Legion Space overlay? When you press it while in a game, I've noticed that the time it takes to show up can be delayed by a number of seconds, and the overlay itself is then laggy, too. Also, and this is arguably more annoying, controlling it will mirror your inputs in the game it's overlaying, too. If I want to scroll through the menu options with the left thumbstick in the Legion Space overlay, that downward left thumbstick motion will translate to the game I'm playing too. There's no pausing mechanism like we've seen on other handhelds, both the overlay and the game will interpret your input. The only way I've found around this is to interact with it using the touchscreen.

Further to that, games themselves can be quite glitchy. While I haven't played it, XDA Editor-in-Chief Rich Woods has said that playing Cuphead is near impossible, as the game will launch upside down with no way to turn it the right way up. Other games, like Halo Infinite, stutter and crash on his unit, too. On mine, I've found that the controller input in Spider-Man simply stops working after exiting sleep mode, and I need to restart the game for it to work. Other games like Cyberpunk: 2077 have simply been unplayable on my unit, as no matter what I do, the performance is sub-20FPS at all times. I can't even launch Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart as it crashes, claiming it ran out of vRAM. However, it does the same when I've increased the vRAM to 8GB.

For problems like these, it would be easy to say the game is at fault if I hadn't played them on other handhelds without any problems. Cyberpunk: 2077 features heavily in my Ayaneo Kun review because of how well it can run at different TDP levels. Games that run well on the Asus ROG Ally (packing the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip) should run well here too, but they simply don't. Whatever Lenovo has done here needs a lot of work, and I do wonder how much of it goes back to the AMD application saying that the preinstalled drivers aren't compatible with the AMD app. Has Lenovo made modifications here that have resulted in worse performance?

All of those are problems that you can at least somewhat expect from an inexperienced company in the space. They're problems that you can understand how they arose, simply by being rushed or not having enough time for polish. However, there are completely nonsensical restrictions too. For example, you can't change the screen refresh rate without the device being plugged into a source of power. Whose idea was that? Why? I had thought I could at least change it in the Windows Display settings but I can't, though Rich can on his unit.

As well, when playing the device offline (something that I imagine is somewhat common for a gaming handheld), Legion Space did not like that. It restarted a couple of times in the middle of my play session and even forced me to reboot the handheld at one point because I couldn't exit it. Thankfully, my game had just autosaved, but that's a simply egregious problem for a gaming handheld.

Overall, the software experience alone makes this a poor experience, but it only gets worse when it comes to actual gaming, too.

Performance

Spider-Man: Miles Morales

The Lenovo Legion Go struggles with a lot of games, and the first I can show here is with Spider-Man: Miles Morales. With 99% of frames only being drawn at a rate of 12.51 FPS, there are massive stutters and performance issues immediately noticeable when playing at medium settings and 1200p. Dropping the graphics to low is at least playable, but the performance is still incredibly poor.

This poor performance is a common problem throughout our testing, and games that run well on the Asus ROG Ally with the same chipset for example, struggle when it comes to the Lenovo Legion Go. I reached out to Lenovo and confirmed that my software is fine and my drivers are updated correctly, so what the cause may be is anyone's guess. Given the poor optimization of the likes of Legion Space, I suspect that Lenovo is simply a bit behind the rest of the competition currently.

Cyberpunk: 2077

Another game that we've been able to extensively test on other handhelds, Cyberpunk: 2077 is a game that people love to play on handhelds. There's a built-in Steam Deck preset too, which makes it perfect for testing in handheld mode. Running it at 800p with the Steam Deck preset at 30W, though, gives a poor experience. It's certainly playable, but with frame pacing issues that cause frequent stutters, it becomes unplayable quickly. For comparison, the below shows the same Cyberunk: 2077 benchmark running on the Asus ROG Ally.

I reached out to Lenovo and shared my testing methodology with them. They shared their data with me and confirmed my findings too. There are clearly performance issues with the Lenovo Legion Go, absolutely no doubt.

Hades

Hades, being a less intensive game, runs quite well on the Lenovo Legion Go, but is still noticeably worse than on the Asus ROG Ally. It seems to sit around 90 to 120 FPS when playing at 30W, whereas the ROG Ally managed to maintain much closer to 120 FPS for a longer period of time. Also, on the ROG Ally, it was playable at much lower TDPs too, which it absolutely wasn't on the Legion Go. In other words, it's playable, but it's nowhere near where it should be with this chipset.

While 99% of frames were drawn on the Legion Go faster than 15ms, they were drawn faster than 11.1ms on the Asus ROG Ally. That difference means that on the ROG Ally you actually make use of the higher refresh rate display, whereas on the Legion you don't a lot of the time with this kind of game.

Lenovo Legion Go: Should you buy it?

You should buy the Lenovo Legion Go if:

• You play games that use a Windows-only anti-cheat
• You want detachable controllers

You shouldn't buy the Lenovo Legion Go if:

• You want great performance
• You want a seamless software experience

The Lenovo Legion Go is an excellent concept of a device and has all the pieces to be the best on the market. On paper, it certainly gives the ROG Ally a run for its money, packing detachable controllers, a bigger display, and even coming with a carrying case in the box. Its FPS mode is something that no other gaming handheld can do right now, and it feels like Lenovo understands the limitations of gaming handhelds.

The Lenovo Legion Go is an excellent concept of a device

Having said that, in its current state, the Legion Go is a difficult device to recommend. It's good in a bubble, but having used all of the other major gaming handhelds on the market right now, it's definitively below the rest and only succeeds in a performance profile that even the Steam Deck can. Z1 Extreme handhelds are meant to be more powerful than the AMD APU in the Steam Deck, and in the case of the ROG Ally, they certainly are.

What's particularly strange is that, in 3DMark, the Legion Go scored exceptionally well and beat the ROG Ally. Benchmarks aren't everything though, and something else is at play, meaning that there's potential for greatness. We just aren't seeing it. We'll hopefully be revisiting this device once updates come in improving performance, as with the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally, neither was perfect at launch either. For now, though, hold off on this one.