Highly effective upgrades however with an excellent greater value

Firstly of the 12 months, Lenovo gave us an early design preview of its subsequent flagship gaming handheld — the Legion Go 2. Immediately, at IFA 2025, the corporate is fleshing out the remainder of the system with extra particulars concerning its specs, value and availability.

By way of its total look, not a lot has modified on the surface of the Legion Go 2. It has the identical common form and removable controllers because the preview mannequin, alongside an 8.8-inch OLED with a variable 144Hz refresh price and VESA HDR TrueBlack 1000 certification. Lenovo has stored the power to make use of the proper controller as a vertical mouse (aka FPS mode) when paired with the hand held’s included puck/stand. And as earlier than, you continue to get Corridor Impact joysticks, a built-in touchpad and kickstand and twin USB 4 ports.

The one main change from what we noticed in January is barely totally different paint colours on parts like its shoulder buttons. That stated, I do recognize that not like a number of its rivals (apart from the Steam Deck), Legion Go 2 nonetheless comes bundled with a case, simply like its predecessor. On the flipside, one factor I want Lenovo had modified is the detachment course of for Legion Go 2’s controllers. Like earlier than, you possibly can press a button in again earlier than sliding every joypad off a small hidden rail. And whereas it really works, after utilizing the brand new magnetic system for the Switch 2’s Joy-Con, doing the identical factor on the Legion Go 2 simply feels clunky.

In the meantime, the Legion Go 2’s internals are the place most of its upgrades have gone. The hand-held can now be outfitted with as much as an AMD Ryzen Z2 Excessive chip, 32GB of RAM and 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage. And if that is not sufficient, there’s additionally a microSD card reader. However maybe essentially the most tantalizing enchancment could also be its battery life, because the Legion Go 2 comes with a 74Whr battery that is 50 p.c bigger than the 49.2 Whr cell within the unique.

Sadly, I solely had a short time with the demo unit and because it did not have a number of video games already put in (particularly extra resource-intensive ones), so I could not actually gauge how a lot better its efficiency was in comparison with the unique mannequin. Nevertheless, I did discover that Lenovo’s Legion Area app felt a lot snappier and extra polished, although it in all probability will not be as seamless because the native recreation integration and new UI that is approaching the ROG Xbox Ally.

All informed, the Legion Go 2 is shaping as much as be a extra refined, highly effective and longer-lasting follow-up whereas retaining just about each main good characteristic from its predecessor like a giant OLED display screen, removable controllers and strong connectivity. Granted, it is nonetheless fairly chunky even with its curvier and extra streamlined design, however that was all the time going to be the case contemplating its massive 8.8-inch show. So in the event you can deal with a Home windows-based handheld (sorry SteamOS followers) that is on the heftier aspect, that is one value maintaining a tally of.

However here is the potential catch: the Legion Go 2 could also be considerably dearer too. It is anticipated to go on sale someday in October beginning at $1,049, which is a major bounce up from the $700 base value of the unique (not to mention what it is going for now, which may be as little as $550 relying on reductions). And that determine is probably going for a mannequin with a Ryzen Z2 chip, which suggests anybody who desires one with a extra highly effective Z2 Excessive processor might want to preserve some wiggle room of their price range. So whereas I recognize how Lenovo is chasing large efficiency on a conveyable gaming machine, the Legion Go 2’s value has me appreciating extra reasonably priced handheld rivals just like the Steam Deck much more than I already do.