Lenovo Is Working On a Windows PC Gaming Handheld Called the 'Legion Go' (windowscentral.com) 17
According to Windows Central, Lenovo is working on a handheld gaming PC dubbed "Legion Go," featuring Windows 11 and Ryzen chips. From the report: While details are scant right now, we understand this will sport AMD's new Phoenix processors, which the chip firm describes as ultra-thin, focused on gaming, AI, and graphics for ultrabooks. The fact the Legion Go will sport Ryzen chips pretty much guarantees that this is a Windows PC gaming handheld, as part of Lenovo's popular gaming "Legion" brand. As of writing, there's no information on exactly when this device could become available, or if, indeed, it'll become available at all.
According to our information, the Legion Go could sport an 8-inch screen, making it larger than the ASUS ROG Ally or the Steam Deck, both of which have a 7-inch display. PC and console games ported to PC are often designed for larger monitors or even TVs, and on smaller screens, UI elements can be difficult to see, especially if the game doesn't have a UI scaling option. A larger display could give the Legion Go a decent advantage over its competitors if it remains lightweight and balanced, which of course remains to be seen. The AMD Phoenix 7040 series chips are described by the firm as "ultra-thin" for powerful, but elegant ultrabook-style devices. They should lend themselves well to a device like the Legion Go, supporting 15W low-power states for lightweight games and maximized battery life, similar to the Steam Deck and ROG Ally. The Z1 Extreme in the ASUS ROG Ally can perform with a TDP below 15W, however, which could give the ROG Ally some advantages there. There's every chance the Legion Go could have other configurations we're unaware of yet, though, we'll just have to wait and see.
According to our information, the Legion Go could sport an 8-inch screen, making it larger than the ASUS ROG Ally or the Steam Deck, both of which have a 7-inch display. PC and console games ported to PC are often designed for larger monitors or even TVs, and on smaller screens, UI elements can be difficult to see, especially if the game doesn't have a UI scaling option. A larger display could give the Legion Go a decent advantage over its competitors if it remains lightweight and balanced, which of course remains to be seen. The AMD Phoenix 7040 series chips are described by the firm as "ultra-thin" for powerful, but elegant ultrabook-style devices. They should lend themselves well to a device like the Legion Go, supporting 15W low-power states for lightweight games and maximized battery life, similar to the Steam Deck and ROG Ally. The Z1 Extreme in the ASUS ROG Ally can perform with a TDP below 15W, however, which could give the ROG Ally some advantages there. There's every chance the Legion Go could have other configurations we're unaware of yet, though, we'll just have to wait and see.
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Ryzen processors (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ryzen processors (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, for gaming, Windows makes sense, However, I have both the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck, and I can tell you, Windows is both the best and worst reason to own a ROG Ally. Windows has game compatibility, so a plus there, But Windows is just not made for tiny screens and cannot be navigated with a controller without nasty hacks like virtual mouse mode.
Heck, the preinstalled software is pretty useless - it can be controlled with the controller, but does not support mouse or touch input! So now you're half the time trying to wriggle a virtual mouse with the joystick, the other half trying to figure out what controls work because it may take mouse and keyboard but no controller, or controller with no mouse or keyboard.
Thus, the ROG Ally has superior hardware compared to the Steam Deck, but the Steam Deck is way more usable a device. Also, the Steam Deck is way more comfortable to hold.
I love these portable gaming devices, but I fear everyone jumping into it is just going to kill it in 2 years with crappy software support to the point we'll never see handheld PCs again for gaming.
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I love these portable gaming devices, but I fear everyone jumping into it is just going to kill it in 2 years with crappy software support to the point we'll never see handheld PCs again for gaming.
It seems like supporting the steam deck would be pretty cheap. SteamOS is based on Arch Linux (it used to be based on Debian) so all they really have to do is identify some stable drivers and libraries worth upgrading to, do a little curation, and bundle Steam. Anything else that the user might want to install from Arch is the user's problem, though AFAIK it's not exactly problematic.
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The "shit software" actually makes me want to see what Lenovo does with this concept. I bought my dad a Lenovo Legion stealth gaming laptop for his retirement (gaming focused features like high refresh rate screen, good keyboard and overbuilt cooling, but with color scheme of an office laptop), and I found the accompanying software to be quite adequate for management things, and interface to be functional and intuitive.
I bought my mom an ultraportable HP laptop for the same reason, and HP's comparable manag
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DOS games (Score:2)
People already have a hand-held entertainment device: It's called a phone, or a Nintendo switch, there being little competition for hand-held entertainment. Children want the game with best eye-candy and simplest controls. PC games tend to have a button-heavy interface and a detailed display that doesn't translate to a small screen. A hand-held Windows-OS demands that PC software suffer the horror of infinite hardware configurations, the same as Android OS. That will require a major change to Windows O
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Phones can only play touchscreen games. And it's a vanishingly small number of people who are going to strap a joypad on there or connect a bluetooth controller.
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There are actually legit good setups for clamping on controller to your phone. Asus even has that weird ROG phone thingy, where controller dongle is basically intended to be used with the phone and there are specific points on the phone where you attach them.
The problem is that games have to aim for most common setup used with the OS, so it's touch screen controls for pretty much everything on smartphones.
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Valve is having moderate success with their handheld, which can run Windows if you really want to for some reason, but which also will run a surprising amount of Windows software tolerably well out of the box (with some coaching from protondb.) No doubt there is some room to grow this market. There's a lot of people who don't seem to want to own "a pc" that might consider a handheld gaming-focused secretly-a-pc. A device actually designed (or at least tuned) to run Windows might do that specific job better
Legion? (Score:1)
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How many virtualisation personalities does it have?
I think the same thing every time I see it--but in all fairness--every PC manufacturer's 'gaming' imprint has some faux '1337 haxor' branding.
One will eventually zag instead of zig, and give their imprint a simple name, with a sleek, elegant case/keyboard unadorned with day-glo and LEDs. It will end up selling really well, and everybody else will go "why didn't we do that?"
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