What People Get Wrong about the Lenovo Legion Go

this is the Lenovo Legion go a handheld gaming PC and this category is very new but I suspect it will grow significantly over the coming years currently the landscape consists of the steam deck Rog Ally and of course the OG Nintendo switch each device takes a slightly different approach and in my opinion this Lenovo Legion go is the best all-around machine right now all right let's begin with the physical design after all that is clearly the main selling point here flinking both sides of the 8.8 in display which is touch enabled we have these joycons and just like the Nintendo switch these are removable you can detach both like so and then you're essentially left with a Windows 11 t tablet it's not the thinnest thing ever because we do have solid performance active cooling the fan exhaust is right there the intake is at the top half on the back and we have a very thoughtfully designed kickstand with lots of different adjustments and it goes all the way to this rather extreme angle to touch more on the display the resolution here is fairly High especially when compared to the rest of the category so it's 2560 by 1 1600 the colors fantastic and the the refresh rate is really special it's 144 HZ I previously reviewed the HP victus which also has a beautiful 144 HZ display and I'm at the point now that I can't not use a fast display so I'm very happy that this has a 144 HZ display and it's one of the key selling points I have seen some people complain that this display is too big when compared to most most of the category but personally I would love to see this display be even bigger in the future I think a 10in display for this kind of a form factor would be absolutely perfect it'll still be much smaller and portable than a 15 or even a 13-in gaming laptop but it would still be just big enough to properly use on a desk with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse right now at 8.8 in it's possible but I find myself wanting a laptop when using it in this format because the display again it's just a little bit too small and even in handheld mode I think a 10-in display so essentially that much bigger would be completely fine and would allow for an even bigger battery it's 49 W hours and my battery test consisted of streaming 4K video and I got just over 3 hours and that's not fantastic if you're only doing web browsing more light activities it will last longer but if you're gaming doing stuff even more heavy it's going to be less now I'm a proud PC Gamer to me a keyboard and mouse is clearly the way to go so when I first got this I mean I appreciate the hardware I mean look how beautiful this device is I'm truly a big fan of what they accomplished here I just couldn't see myself using console controls like this in any meaningful capacity so initially I thought that this device was for people that were coming over from console to PC they wanted to retain these controls but you know move on to a PC platform but the more I use this device the more I see its appeal and that appeal in my opinion is the versatility this thing is way more versatile than a standard gaming laptop and allow me to demonstrate so of course we have the handheld mode this is fun I wouldn't play a competitive FPS game like OverWatch in this mode although I did boot up old school Call of Duty zombies and playing it in this format was not only nostalgic but a ton of fun but this is just one option you have option two is to remove the joycons they come off pretty easy there's a button on the back that you push and now we have the option to continue to use the joycons detached if you want it works just fine I don't notice any real detectable lag it's fairly responsive but the real advantage of this mode is when you activate the FPS vertical Mouse configuration so you switch on this mode on the bottom of the controller you put it in the magnetic base and just like that we have a vertical Mouse and to my surprise it does work shockingly well and it's a ton of fun I should also mention that the joycons themselves have extra buttons and these can be programmed to do essentially whatever you want and specifically to accommodate this mouse functionality they have a second bumper so the top one is the left click and the bottom is the right click it feels super super natural so right click is to zoom and then the left is to to shoot it is a little bit awkward because the analog stick and these buttons are in your palm and you're constantly moving and clicking them but they are disabled so it's not it's not doing anything and then option three is just to plug in a regular keyboard and mouse we do retain this option all you need is a regular USBC Hub so you plug in the keyboard mouse plug it into the device like so and that's it everything is working so obviously as a PC Gamer this is by far my preferred method and this feels completely natural and I do appreciate how when you switch between console and PC inputs the game automatically adapts so you don't need to go into the settings and change all the controls let's talk a bit more about the versatility because that's what this device is all about so when it's being used in laptop mode it's only a little bit worse than my actual gaming laptop and that's only due to the smaller display and the hassle that is connecting a thirdparty keyboard but this can easily be fixed I think they should take inspiration from tablets like the iPad that have a phenomenal first-party keyboard attachment if this Legion go had some great built-in keyboard much like the magic keyboard from Apple it wouldn't only reduce the friction involved when setting up a a desktop gaming situation but it would also beautifully play into the flexibility this device is all about giving you the option to game with traditional PC controls or console controls in truly any setting without being limited by Hardware constraints so if they did that plus include a bigger display roughly 10 in along with an even faster better chip in the Next Generation then it would be very hard not to choose a device like this over a laptop and my next video is going to be a direct comparison between this this and what I'm calling one of the best budget gaming laptops in the market the HP vicus I have a lot to say so make sure to subscribe for that video because I think these devices maybe not yet but eventually this could be the go-to mobile PC gaming platform not laptops and it seems like out of this entire category so the steam deck OLED the Rog Ally the Lenova go is the only device that's trying to realize this future potential both the OLED and the r Ally seem to be kind of secondary accessories they're cheaper only $600 so they definitely have that budget appeal but both of them have a much smaller display roughly around 7 in The Ally is only 1080p it is 120 HZ so close to the legion go but the steam deck is only 90 HZ and the resolution is only 1280x 800 so the legion go is by far the most capable device here and if you compare these against mobile Computing because after all this does run full windows 11 it's a complete PC that's when you really begin to see the value that Lenovo is offering with the legion go it's not perfect yet I wouldn't replace my laptop with this because again we don't have a built-in keyboard the display is still a little bit too small but if I had to guess in 5 years time this whole category is going to converge on design that looks a lot more like what Lenovo is doing versus say steam with the steam deck OLED but let us know what you think in the comments below if you want to see more content on this device and the feature subscribe and I'll see you guys in the next one

Channel: Nick LaForge

Views: 43,167

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Id: ruBiTx2LiNE

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 19 2023