Lenovo Legion Go 2 Hands-on: Powerful Upgrades But With An Even Higher Price

At nan opening of nan year, Lenovo gave america an early creation preview of its adjacent flagship gaming handheld — the Legion Go 2. Today, at IFA 2025, nan institution is fleshing retired nan remainder of nan strategy pinch much specifications regarding its specs, value and availability.

In position of its wide appearance, not overmuch has changed connected nan extracurricular of nan Legion Go 2. It has nan aforesaid wide style and detachable controllers arsenic nan preview model, alongside an 8.8-inch OLED pinch a adaptable 144Hz refresh complaint and VESA HDR TrueBlack 1000 certification. Lenovo has kept nan expertise to usage nan correct controller arsenic a vertical rodent (aka FPS mode) erstwhile paired pinch nan handheld's included puck/stand. And arsenic before, you still get Hall Effect joysticks, a built-in touchpad and kickstand and dual USB 4 ports.

The only awesome alteration from what we saw successful January is somewhat different overgarment colors connected elements for illustration its enarthrosis buttons. That said, I do admit that dissimilar a batch of its rivals (aside from nan Steam Deck), Legion Go 2 still comes bundled pinch a case, conscionable like its predecessor. On nan flipside, 1 point I wish Lenovo had changed is nan detachment process for Legion Go 2's controllers. Like before, you tin property a fastener successful backmost earlier sliding each joypad disconnected a mini hidden rail. And while it works, aft utilizing nan caller magnetic strategy for nan Switch 2's Joy-Con, doing nan aforesaid point connected nan Legion Go 2 conscionable feels clunky.

Meanwhile, nan Legion Go 2's internals are wherever astir of its upgrades person gone. The handheld tin now beryllium equipped pinch up to an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, 32GB of RAM and 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage. And if that's not enough, there's besides a microSD paper reader. But possibly nan astir tantalizing betterment whitethorn beryllium its artillery life, arsenic nan Legion Go 2 comes pinch a 74Whr artillery that's 50 percent larger than nan 49.2 Whr compartment successful nan original.

Unfortunately, I only had a little clip pinch nan demo portion and arsenic it didn't person a batch of games already installed (especially much resource-intensive ones), truthful I couldn't really gauge really overmuch amended its capacity was compared to nan original model. However, I did announcement that Lenovo's Legion Space app felt overmuch snappier and much polished, though it astir apt won't beryllium arsenic seamless arsenic nan autochthonal crippled integration and caller UI that's coming connected nan ROG Xbox Ally.

All told, nan Legion Go 2 is shaping up to beryllium a much refined, powerful and longer-lasting follow-up while retaining beautiful overmuch each awesome bully characteristic from its predecessor for illustration a large OLED screen, detachable controllers and coagulated connectivity. Granted, it's still rather chunky moreover pinch its curvier and much streamlined design, but that was ever going to beryllium nan lawsuit considering its ample 8.8-inch display. So if you tin grip a Windows-based handheld (sorry SteamOS fans) that's connected nan heftier side, this is 1 worthy keeping an oculus on.

But here's nan imaginable catch: nan Legion Go 2 whitethorn beryllium substantially much costly too. It's expected to spell connected waste sometime successful October starting astatine $1,049, which is simply a important jump up from nan $700 guidelines value of nan original (let unsocial what it's going for now, which tin beryllium arsenic debased arsenic $550 depending connected discounts). And that fig is apt for a exemplary pinch a Ryzen Z2 chip, which intends anyone who wants 1 pinch a much powerful Z2 Extreme processor will request to support immoderate wiggle room successful their budget. So while I admit really Lenovo is chasing large capacity connected a portable gaming machine, nan Legion Go 2's value has maine appreciating much affordable handheld rivals for illustration nan Steam Deck moreover much than I already do.