(Image credit: Future / Lenovo)
Valve has officially discontinued the LCD Steam Deck, so if you’re looking for a powerful handheld gaming PC that isn’t going to break the bank, then this Lenovo Legion Go S is your answer. Amazon have dropped the price of this Lenovo handheld back to under $600, offering better specs, along with Valve’s very own SteamOS to rival Windows 11.
This processor is one of the few physical hardware differences that you’ll find between the two models currently on sale. The AMD Ryzen Z2 Go is a Zen 3+ processor, fi…
(Image credit: Future / Lenovo)
Valve has officially discontinued the LCD Steam Deck, so if you’re looking for a powerful handheld gaming PC that isn’t going to break the bank, then this Lenovo Legion Go S is your answer. Amazon have dropped the price of this Lenovo handheld back to under $600, offering better specs, along with Valve’s very own SteamOS to rival Windows 11.
This processor is one of the few physical hardware differences that you’ll find between the two models currently on sale. The AMD Ryzen Z2 Go is a Zen 3+ processor, fitted with four CPU cores and eight threads, along with a boost clock speed up to 4.3 GHz. The built-in Radeon GPU it includes is RDNA 2-based with 12 compute units and a TDP of between 15 and 30W. Compare and contrast to the Steam Deck, which uses a Zen 2-based, custom-designed Van Gogh APU, which features only four CPU cores, along with an RDNA 2 GPU with only eight compute units.
When we put this handheld to the test in our Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS review, this Z2 Go variant proved to be less powerful than the more expensive Z1 Extreme model, but the gulf between them isn’t huge, and running SteamOS is certainly a better option for gamers than running it with Windows 11. Frame rates remained playable in several intensive games that we tested, including the notorious CPU-heavy Cyberpunk 2077 at 800p, which was able to maintain 50fps on average. The same handheld with Windows 11 installed, meanwhile, was only able to manage 32fps.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Coupled with this AMD processor is 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD for storage. You’re also getting an 8-inch IPS display, which features a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, along with a variable refresh rate of 120 Hz. This means that you can game at 1200p, even using the Z2 Go APU, but you’ll find that better frame rates in the most resource-heavy games are available if you drop down to 800p or less.
The decision by Valve to discontinue the most affordable Steam Deck makes this Lenovo Legion Go S handheld even better value. This device doesn’t feature an OLED panel like the similarly-priced Steam Deck OLED, but it does have a bigger screen (8-inch vs 7.4), along with a higher native resolution and VRR support, coupled with the already-mentioned superior gaming performance.
The Lenovo Legion Go S also features a bigger 55.5 Whr battery which we found in our review to last for around two hours while using the device’s power-saving profile. You’re also getting double the storage capacity (1TB vs 512GB) against the soon-to-be entry-level Steam Deck OLED for only $40 more.
Ultimately, though, it’s SteamOS that makes this handheld truly great. Yes, Microsoft is trying to improve the handheld experience on Windows 11, but SteamOS continues to be the best option for handheld gaming, especially on cheaper hardware. Valve’s efforts to improve Linux gaming on handhelds for Steam Deck owners are available to you to by running SteamOS, thanks largely to the Proton compatibility layer, which unlocks access to a huge library of handheld-compatible games on Steam.
The market for any kind of gaming machine, be it a laptop, PC, console, or a handheld like this Lenovo is under threat at the moment. As SSD and RAM prices continue rising, handhelds are currently one of the most affordable devices for picking up and playing PC games, with this Lenovo Legion Go S running SteamOS sitting near the top of the pack. The $589.99 sale price makes it one of the most competitively-priced handhelds left to rival the Steam Deck, but as those chip prices begin to rise, it might not stay below $600 for long — if you want it, you best grab it quickly.
If you’re looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.
Ben Stockton is a deals writer at Tom’s Hardware. He’s been writing about technology since 2018, with bylines at PCGamesN, How-To Geek, and Tom’s Guide, among others. When he’s not hunting down the best bargains, he’s busy tinkering with his homelab or watching old Star Trek episodes.