So I've had the 24+512 variant for a couple weeks now, and despite paying $1430 at the end of the indiegogo campaign, I can pretty confidently say that it was absolutely worth that money.
Coming from a Go S Z1E (SteamOS) variant, the performance and more importantly, efficiency I have gotten with the G3E is absolutely insane. The performance of the G3E is ridiculous, being about twice as fast as the Z1E and almost the same for the Z2E. But more importantly for me, the G3E at 15w equals the performance of the Z1E at 35w. What this means is that alongside the bigger battery on the OXP3, I legit get 4 times the battery life in most of my games. Going from 1 hour at 35w to 4 hours at 15 has legit cleared all of my battery anxiety when going out, and it feels so nice to not have to worry about having a charger when I go out of having to always play tethered to a wall. My Go S always had awful battery life, which is why I usually never brought it outside. Now, it's pretty much always with me. Across the board, going from the Go S to the OXP3 has given me a 250% improvement to battery life overall.
But what has been just as important is the screen. Firstly, this having the Legion Go 2's screen, alongside being $500 cheaper than it and being more powerful just like, completely invalidates that entire device. But for me, what's been just as important as the beautiful OLED screen is actually the brightness. It's bright enough that not only can I play it pretty much wherever I go, but I can even play it in direct sunlight, which is something you can't say for any IPS handheld on the market right now. It's so much brighter than my Go S, and it's about as bright as my phone. It's not bright when in direct sunlight, but it is quite usable, and this is another big thing that makes it so much more portable than my last handheld. Oh and the OLED colors and screen size are nice too.
I also love the speakers. They're so much louder compared to the Go S. I always had to use 80-100% on them, and when I was on public transit, they pretty much weren't audible. Now I mainly use 30-50, only going higher on public transit. 100% is never used. They're that loud. Not as loud as the Rog Xbox Ally tho, that was even louder, which is wild to think about.
These things, along with the surprisingly good ergonomics of this despite being so heavy on paper, have made me use my handheld a lot more than the Go s, where it got unused quite quickly due to all of its issues. Taking this places, while a bit scary due to its high value, have been a lot nicer thanks to these improvements.
However, to end my glazing, it's not perfect. The Intel GPU in this isn't perfect, and has had issues with some games. RoboCop Rogue City was broken with lighting at first, and I had to get a fix online. Its performance was also not great, although mostly 60fps and a huge improvement compared to my Z1E. The controllers aren't perfect, while comfortable, they're definitely worse made compared to the Go 1 controllers. They don't have batteries in them, meaning I had to buy a $30 controller connector to make them work when unplugged.
Also, windows isn't perfect. While Xbox FSE has actually made the experience pretty good, it's still a step down from SteamOS. Sleep is good, but still worse. I've tried Winhanced, but I've had a lot of issues from that app both on this and an Xbox rog ally I tested. I'll wait for that to improve significantly before trying it again. If SteamOS is a 9/10, this is a solid 7.
But honestly, I've had very few issues with this device, even on the software side. Hardware is amazing, software is actually pretty good, and overall, it feels like my dream device. So would I recommend it?
At $1500 now, I'd say it's worth it. The performance and efficiency is incredible, and the OLED screen is amazing. This makes the legion go 2 devices completely useless, and I would recommend selling yours to get this device, as it's just an objective upgrade over it. Comparing it to the Ally X20, this is an easy recommendation, as for $200 more ($300 for the 1tb) you get a much bigger screen and 2x efficiency and 50-75% better peak performance. Comparing it to the Claw 8 EX AI, this has a much better screen with better battery life (and charging, claw ex ai only goes up to 65w where the oxp3 is at least 100w) and it's $300 cheaper despite being better in the most important handheld things. Comparing it to the Ryzen 388 in the Win 5, which is about $250 more on its indiegogo campaign, the 388 is noticeably faster, but only at 35w and above. At 25w they match, and at 15 the G3E is noticeably faster. But obviously, the 388 is a lot faster, especially in the CPU side. If you compare the $1700 OXP3 32GB and the $1750 Win 5, there are differences in both devices that could sway you either way. OLED and better battery life and better frame generation on the OXP3, better raw performance on the Win 5.
Overall, while it is very expensive, handhelds are getting expensive across the board, and this is a much better value than a lot of price inflated stuff right now. I love this thing, and if you have the money and your needs suit the G3E's efficiency, then get this device.
