It doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago that Lenovo announced the Legion Go S, a sort-of sequel to the excellent if slightly expensive Legion Go, and now the company may be gearing up for another release. It feels that way because it was only in January when we first got wind of the Go S, as well as a brief teaser of a proper Legion Go 2. According to some new leaks, some things have changed since we last “saw” the handheld.
Reaching new extremes
When Lenovo initially showed off the Legion Go 2 prototype at CES earlier this year, it wore the TrueStrike controllers, one of our favourite features from the first, which were cut to save costs on the cheaper Go S. More importantly, AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme chipset was running the show. Some Chinese users have reportedly got their hands on the Legion Go 2 “prototype”, which was initially rumoured to be releasing sometime in September.
Fortunately, those TrueStrike controllers have stuck around on the prototype, although they appear to be far more comfortable than Lenovo’s first crack at its Joy-Con-like controllers. For one thing, they’re more ergonomic, closely mimicking the Go S’ improved grips.
One of the features we (and plenty of others) were expecting is an OLED panel, and the Legion Go 2 looks like it will oblige. The 8.8in screen will reportedly feature a 144Hz refresh rate and a 1200p resolution. The spec sheet in the video claims it’s using a 500-nit panel.
As for the bit you’ve all been waiting for, the model in the video above reckons the Go 2 is rocking an AMD Ryzen Z2 chipset, and not the Z2 Extreme we expected. Not to worry. A Reddit user claiming to be responsible for the video above claims that “some 890m machines have also appeared in the second-hand market in China.”
Read More: Who needs food anyway: pricing for the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds leak
That could mean that Lenovo has multiple Legion Go 2 models in the works, some fetching a cheaper price in exchange for less-capable hardware, while those wanting the Z2 Extreme chipset will be expected to pay a little more for the privilege. More choice is definitely a good thing. The video lists the device as having 32GB LPDDR 5 — the same as the CES prototype — though that’s likely to be the maximum memory available.
It’s also running Windows 11, which may initially disappoint some users who wanted to see Lenovo bring back SteamOS, but we don’t expect it to be an issue. Like with the Legion Go S, the company offered the handheld in both Windows/SteamOS configurations, and we don’t see why that would change here. One issue could be the weight, with the video reporting a 938g weight, up from the original’s 854g weight.
There’s still no word on which models will be made available in South Africa and the sort of pricing that’ll accompany them when they inevitably turn up later this year.
