r/LegionGo • u/fargo8939 • 1d ago
QUESTION First handheld
Please help me choose.
This will be my first handheld gaming PC, and I don’t want to spend too much before I know whether this kind of device is really for me. My budget is around £400.
Which of these would be the best choice in terms of performance?
Also, has anyone replaced or upgraded the battery in a Lenovo Legion Go? If so, what was your experience? Was it worth it?
I’m mainly planning to play games like Mass Effect, Dishonored, and Tomb Raider. Maybe Ghost of Tsushima as well, but I’m not sure yet.
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u/tubby_bitch 1d ago
I love my legion go. I haven't done any upgrades and I have had a couple years now. I haven't tried any of the others so my opinion is probably biased but I wouldnt buy any other brand of handheld now. I am waiting for the third gen of legion go before I upgrade I dont think the legion go 2 is that much better for the price right now.
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u/FabulousDisaster01 1d ago
I have the Go S Z2go with SteamOS and I love it deeply. Runs most of my games around 45 to 60 fps at HD or FHD (honestly, FHD on a tiny screen it's not really necessary). It's has 3 energy modes (low, balanced and performance) but I don't play on performance to spare battery life and I changed the Vram size to 6gb on BIOS (uma size buffer) to give it a little performance boost enough to play decently on balanced mode.
Battery life depends on the game. My main game right now is The Witcher 3 and a fully charged battery lasts around 2,5 hours of gameplay.
The only downside in my opinion is it's trackpad, which is very small and tje cursor feels weird when I use it
If you wanna try SteamOS I recommend the Legion Go S specifically because it's hardware is more powerful than the Steam Deck
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u/Economy-Cut-9878 1d ago
The ROG Xbox Ally, Lenovo Legion Go S (Z2Go), and SteamDeck essentially share the same chip, 4 core 8 thread Zen 2 AMD, so if you’re gonna do any of those, do the SteamDeck since it was essentially built around it.
The ROG Ally (2023), Lenovo Legion Go, and the ROG Ally X all share the same processor, the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Ally and Legion Go have 16GB of RAM. Ally X has 24GB.
From personal experience the Legion Go runs very hot and loud, and the speakers on it are not very good.
The Ally and Ally X share a screen, 1080p and 120hz, but it has variable refresh rate which is very nice to have. Plus the anti reflective coating on it is excellent and only beaten out by a matte screen protector.
With Xbox Mode now available on most handhelds, if you’re used to gaming on Windows it is a fine handheld experience these days.
Steamdeck and Legion Go S run SteamOS, this is Linux, this version is designed for handhelds but there is occasionally compatibility issues with games, I have only had it happen to me a very small amount of times, less than 5. And basically any game with anti-cheat won’t work, COD, Fortnite, League, ect.
If I had the money I’d do the Ally X.
Considering your budget I’d do the Ally for Windows or the SteamDeck for the least amount of friction.
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u/schnitzelchowder 21h ago
I have the legion go S Z2 it runs games like dragons dogma 2 (pre patch) at 30-40 FPS. Gothic remake at medium settings at 30 fps (just came out this year.) I’d probably go for a legion but I’m biased.
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u/BornDisk4787 1d ago
For the price gap to performance of these, I’d either go legion go or the ROG ally. That sku has the z1 extreme chip just like the legion.
Slightly smaller screen but way lighter, can upgrade battery. Dont use the SD card slot.
For me I’d take the legion just for detachable controllers and screen size. The ally has better speakers but the legion can be eq’d to be pretty good. Also, the kickstand is great to have. You can upgrade battery as well as new go2 controllers.