The Only Real Alternative to Steam Deck

The Go S Legion is a side level of the Lenovo Legion goes from 2023. It always has an 8 -inch screen, but it is a single hand design that does not carry the two detachable controllers of the Legion Go Nintendo Switch 2. As comfortable as it is, the windows combined with poor performance hindered considerably what it could be. I could say from the jump that at $ 730, it was relatively too expensive and undernourished – a real device “just get a steam bridge”. The new version is cheaper and is delivered with Steamos, the same user -based operating system for the screen made by Valve. I tested the Legion of $ 600 with Steamos in a beautiful deep “nebula” purple color which reminds me of the Gothic child that I would have liked to be in high school. It comes with a Ryzen Z2 GO processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. It is $ 50 more than an OLED steam bridge with the same storage capacity of 512 GB. Valve Steam bridge LCD $ 400 is the cheapest of its kind, although it only delivered with 256 GB of storage.

The more powerful legion goes with Steamos, fueled by an Extreme AMD Ryzen Z1 processor and 32 GB of RAM LPDDR5X-6400, is close to what you could pay for an Asus Rog Ally X, which has a better battery life but slightly worse ergonomic. But I did not test this model.

For shit and laughter, I caught the Legion of $ 730 to White Windows Go Go which was sent to me earlier this year and I installed Steamos on it to see what is happening when you add more RAM to the mixture, but I have not experienced a significant jump for performance between games. The Ryzen Z2 GO is the low -power APU, or “accelerated processing unit”, designed specifically for the Go Legion Legion models. The Ryzen Z1 Extreme and Z2 Go are a type of processor that combines the capacities of a CPU processor and a GPU or graphic processor. The Z2 Go operates on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture of AMD and has half the number of nuclei like the extreme Z1 operating on Zen 4.

Anyway, all the Go S models share the same LCD IPS screen with a maximum resolution of 1,920 × 1,200. It does not support deep blacks and the contrast of the OLED panel on a steam bridge, but it is still fairly brilliant to play inside or outside. The largest display resolution can eat performance with fewer GPU nuclei and less RAM. Few players want to lower their resolution specifications lower than the maximum of their screen for performance, so the juggling act of the game performance parameters becomes even more capricious. The important thing is whether the device can make a happy medium between playable image frequencies and pretty graphics. According to my experience, the Z2 Go with Steamos can get a good balance to play intensive games, and it’s so much better thanks to the operating system made by valve.

I carried out several test cycles with each GO legion trendy and running at 30 W. I defined games on the maximum resolution they could. The two devices can reach 40 W of TDP, alias Power Thermal Design, which provides more power to the chip to help them develop more frames of each game. However, you will probably not play with higher power, unless you plan to stay near an electrical outlet. Overall, the Legion Go S with a Z2 Go has surpassed the same equipment with Windows. Through games like Control And Baldur’s Gate III, I saw an increase in performance of almost 10 IPS after installing Steamos. Cyberpunk 2077 At 1200p, it went from 27 IPS by references to compensate for almost 40 IPS. Windows has a multitude of background tasks that slow down performance, while Svelte Steamos does not have this problem.

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By comparing the Legion, Go S with a personalized APU of AMD vapor, the device powered by Steamos de Lenovo has an easy advantage thanks to its wider range of TDP beyond the maximum valve device. With the higher degree of versatility, I could reach the same image frequencies at 1200p against 800p on the steam bridge over several games, if they were older and less intensive titles like West weird Or Hades II. In Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmarks, the GO S legion with Z2 GO at 1200p and 30 TDP managed to garnish the steam bridge to 800p by a few images. Of course, the doubling of the power will also affect the battery life. If you want to play your games at their best, maximum resolution and graphical adjustment that the system can manage, you will get less than two hours of play. It is not much less than a steam game half the TDP, but the end result is that you will have to have a charger at hand or limit your game sessions.

Steamos offers better image frequencies than windows, and if that was not enough, it is so much easier to use. Games are easier to download and faster to load, especially when built for Steam Deck and limit the number of additional launchers you need to click. Unfortunately, the experience between playing on Steam Deck and Steamos on third -party devices is not one by one. The big difference is how Valve calculates if a game is “Steamos compatible” compared to “verified steam deck”. Although Valve will determine if a game can operate at playable image frequencies on a steam game, it will only label if a game is technically compatible on the Legion Go S. It means that you can install a game while waiting for it to work well, but that you cannot even control it with chickens.

I managed to install my essential applications on Steam Deck at the Legion Go S. It included Decky Loader for plugins like Junk Store, which offers easier access to my epic game library than to take the trouble to install the heroic launcher. I also managed to obtain an emodeck operational, which means that I could wear all my retro games to the new system without any traction. Did I miss access to Applications like Razer Cortex Like my favorite way to do PC-to-Handheld streaming? Yes, but I would exchange access to each Windows application for a clean user interface without a second reflection. When I am not worried that people ask me to connect to OneDrive or dread what will happen when I dare put the sleeping device during the game, I can rather focus on reading my games to their best.

In all respects, the Legion will become a steam bridge, but there are still major considerations if you try to decide between the two. On the one hand, the OLED steam bridge is lighter at 640 g, or 1.41 pounds, against 740g of Lenovo, or 1.6 pounds. It doesn’t seem much until you feel the tension in your arms after an extended game session extended on your bed. The Legion Go S has slightly better ergonomics, but one or the other device is better in accordance with the hands than most other similar devices on the market. What is lacking in the design of Lenovo is the two trackpads of the Steam bridge. These haptic trackpads add a surprising amount of versatility in certain games, especially in CRPGs or strategy games like Tactical violation wizards. The tiny trackpad on the Go S legion did not even seem to work out of the box. I had such a bad experience with it on the Windows version – with a vibration like a rabbit dipped in an icy lake – I did not want to repair it.

I would also give the advantage of audio quality at the steam bridge for a clear sound, but the Twin 2W speakers of the GO legion offer enough clarity so that I did not immediately feel the need to reach a pair of headphones. I experienced strange audio bugs with my revision unit which led to crackling during the game, although it was incoherent, and it was not present on the old model even after installed Steamos. The real distinction between Lenovo and Valve pocket computers is the screen. You get almost 8 inches of real estate on the GO S legion and a higher maximum resolution, but it’s still the LCD screen. If I have the two screens sitting side by side, I can’t help but gravitate to the device with better contrast and these blacks “ink” always praised.

Thus, the Legion Go S is currently your only alternative to the ready -to -use steam range, and this is worth it, especially if you don’t want to load an operating system other than Windows. That said, the future list of pocket computers of this year becomes more interesting. We have not yet seen any devices launched with Far chip Ryzen Z2 of AMDBut we know that they come from companies like MSI, Asus and Lenovo themselves. The other large consideration is how Microsoft can finally make its operating system achievable on a 7 -inch screen with the Ally Rog Xbox to come. This next computer Mark a turning point with Windows Gaming, Not only in performance but global conviviality. If you want a pocket computer now, opt for the Go S legion or the steam bridge. One or the other would serve you well. If you are still on the fence, you should wait to see what the future has in store for us.

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