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Spoiler Leaked images reveal Lenovo’s Steam Deck competitor with a hint of the Switch

Competition is good. it'd be nice if people didn't always have to copy Nintendo for these types of innovations and make their own, but competition will only make Nintendo put better effort into their future consoles. Make their future consoles stand out a bit more. I personally want a machine that is Switch-like that can have legitimate VR. That makes it a triple threat.
 
Love to see another option in the handheld market. It's absolutely fantastic that this segment is growing this well and quickly.

I can't imagine this being priced well enough to even be a serious alternative, though. Like, Switch and Deck can be had for sub 500 bucks, depending on the configuration (storage, refurbished) for the latter. I don't expect the Legion to beat the Ally's price point.

Really have to wonder whether there is a chance of them somehow cutting costs or being able to subsidise the product.
 
Magic-Man said:
This thing will live and die by the pricetag. The only way it survives is if it's cheap. Nintendo and Valve already dominate the handheld gaming scene.
Click to expand...
Maybe it can find space in an enthusiast niche, it looks quite thick, so maybe it has good specs, although the detachable controllers point at an intended wide audience by Lenovo.
 
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Shiba said:
From an ergonomic standpoint the controllers look better than the joycons already. That being said it’s Lenovo and their stuff if pretty crap so I don’t expect the hardware to be of the best quality.
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Really? I thought their laptops are highly regarded. Hardware wise, aren’t Thinkpads one of the best windows laptops?
 
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Multiverse said:
Really? I thought their laptops are highly regarded. Hardware wise. Aren’t Thinkpads one of the best windows laptop?
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The IBM thinkpads where legendary, lenovo thinkpads at the start where meh, their mainstream thinkpad branded lines are fine i gues, but a lot of tech companies use either HP, DELL or Lenovo Thinkpads. They are fine computers for the most part.

They had some fine tablets, while not being to special. some interesting ideas.
But honestly: 90% of mainstream laptops are between bad and meh, not just lenovo.
 
Shiba said:
From an ergonomic standpoint the controllers look better than the joycons already.
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Perhaps. Importantly, if the ergonomics are more acceptable to a larger number maybe this could be a boost to acceptance of split controllers. We need more split controllers.
 
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I'm trying to get the point of the Switch style controllers. They don't seem to be designed for a P1/P2 experience, they look like a controller that is designed from a solo player's perspective (think how the layout of each joycon is fairly uniform - stick + diamond buttons). I can only assume that this is for a dockable experience, but I didn't read anything about a dock.
 
fourfourfun said:
I'm trying to get the point of the Switch style controllers. They don't seem to be designed for a P1/P2 experience, they look like a controller that is designed from a solo player's perspective (think how the layout of each joycon is fairly uniform - stick + diamond buttons). I can only assume that this is for a dockable experience, but I didn't read anything about a dock.
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It's Windows, so it'll be "dockable" by default assuming there's some port on the thing capable of outputting HD video. Gonna guess that it has a USB C port capable of that like the rest of the competition, so any old USB C dock will work. Maybe Lenovo will have their own dock they sell alongside this thing or include, maybe not. If that is the form factor they are going with it'd make sense to have an official one, but if they don't (or if it's insanely overpriced) then they assume people will just have their own solution.
 
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Shiba said:
From an ergonomic standpoint the controllers look better than the joycons already. That being said it’s Lenovo and their stuff if pretty crap so I don’t expect the hardware to be of the best quality.
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And don't forget what they did with Superfish. Immediately turned me away from ever buying anything Lenovo.
 
Smash Kirby said:
And don't forget what they did with Superfish. Immediately turned me away from ever buying anything Lenovo.
Click to expand...
Thank you for bringing this up! I've never heard about this before (around the time that happened, I didn't really give attention to stuff like it), and it honestly makes me feel pretty iffy (even more than before, tbh) about my current Lenovo laptop.
One more reason to switch to something else asap again, even if it's been like 8 or 9 years.
 
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MeatheadSamus said:
Competition is good. it'd be nice if people didn't always have to copy Nintendo for these types of innovations and make their own, but competition will only make Nintendo put better effort into their future consoles. Make their future consoles stand out a bit more. I personally want a machine that is Switch-like that can have legitimate VR. That makes it a triple threat.
Click to expand...

Problem is cost. It would more likely be the Wii U gamepad or the Xbox one Kinect all over again. VR is such a niche that any console device built in as a system level feature that everyone would have to pay for whether they like it or not, means that the company would have an extreme uphill battle to get the whole thing in to comes. It's be more like a zero threat than a triple one
 
Magic-Man said:
Nintendo and Valve already dominate the handheld gaming scene.
Click to expand...

While Steam Deck still is a quite new device on the market and seems to be selling well, it has from what I gather sold no more than 3m units this far. Kinda pales in comparison to the Switches 125m units. My point is that you are very correct that price point is everything if a product aims to more than super niche for rich enthusiasts.
 
Christer said:
While Steam Deck still is a quite new device on the market and seems to be selling well, it has from what I gather sold no more than 3m units this far. Kinda pales in comparison to the Switches 125m units. My point is that you are very correct that price point is everything if a product aims to more than super niche for rich enthusiasts.
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I mean, their respective dominance is obviously relative to the market as a whole. The (handheld) console market thus far has proven to be a much larger one than the (younger) handheld PC market. Relatively speaking, the Deck definitely dominates the latter, but we're talking about a much smaller market segment to begin with. Where 80m+ handheld consoles sold is seen as a success for Nintendo and formerly PlayStation, we're looking at a few tens to hundreds of thousands handheld PCs before the Deck entered the market. 3m+ then is quite the achievement there.
 
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Yamanoi said:
This is why I'm glad Nintendo is filing all those patents. It makes me disappointed in humanity to see these things.
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On the bright side, I bet Lenovo won’t continue to sell Lenovo-Cons with extreme stick drift issues even 6 years after they release this!
 
Magic-Man said:
This thing will live and die by the pricetag. The only way it survives is if it's cheap. Nintendo and Valve already dominate the handheld gaming scene.
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Correction. Nintendo dominates the handheld market!!
Around 2 million Deck sold is no domination at all lol.
 
Keep in mind that you cannot simply walk into a hardware store and buy a Steam Deck at retail. This is slowly changing in certain Asian countries, but it's not 100% a thing yet. That limits its reach even more compared to other things.

Still though, Steam Deck has a bunch of other issues that would limit its appeal, like Valve's Verified/Playable system being awful and it having the worst UI I've ever used.
 
Shiba said:
From an ergonomic standpoint the controllers look better than the joycons already. That being said it’s Lenovo and their stuff if pretty crap so I don’t expect the hardware to be of the best quality.
Click to expand...
I know this isn’t 100% relevant, but Lenovo has the most reliable x86 servers with the best uptime. More supercomputers use Lenovo systems than any other server maker as well. They can make good stuff, although I don’t expect this product to be that impressive
 
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Phantom Thief said:
Windows does not work in the handheld form factor, it doesn't matter who makes the hardware.
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Handheld Windows could’ve worked if we still had the Windows 8 start menu. It worked really well for tablets and then once they switched over to 10’s hamburger style tablet mode, it just didn’t work as well anymore. Either way, SteamOS is just better in general for a console.
 
MSnap said:
Handheld Windows could’ve worked if we still had the Windows 8 start menu. It worked really well for tablets and then once they switched over to 10’s hamburger style tablet mode, it just didn’t work as well anymore. Either way, SteamOS is just better in general for a console.
Click to expand...
Windows 8 style UI would work but it's still not great (at least from how poorly it translates to Xbox One/Series); that said, the presence of a touch screen would presumably change things.

But yeah, Valve did amazing with the Deck UI. I am legitimately impressed at how slick it is and how much it streamlines things without losing the options and customizability PC players like.
 
I've tried out a few desktop environments on tablets the past couple months on a 13" Windows detachable tablet. Windows 11, sucks. Windows 10, a bit better. Windows 8, I remember using that on all in one touch screen computers. That was the best touchscreen

Linux side. Gnome may be the most ideal mouse/keyboard desktop environment for touchscreen I've tried but there seems to be some touchscreen issues since like Gnome 40. KDE is surprisingly good and is what I use now since Gnome has been giving me issues. KDE Plasma also has a mobile phone UI that I'll get to trying someday

ChimeraOS comes with an older version of Gnome for desktop interactions but it's primarily a Steam Big Picture SteamOS lookalike and after a while, pretty much the same features as drivers and utilities are sorted out. In like a year or two, I would want this used to get it cheaper, and then I'd slap ChimeraOS on it. The Ayaneo Kun has a 75Wh battery though that makes it real appealing. Also it's 2560x1600 display for some clean 800p scaling.

Removable controls is nice. Touchscreen full PC tablets are underrated. Dock them as a workstation and still get access to all the more featured software you get on desktop, and still be a really good media tablet with the web browsers with full extension support and Linux and Windows it's pretty easy to run Android apps now
 
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Yamanoi said:
This is why I'm glad Nintendo is filing all those patents. It makes me disappointed in humanity to see these things.
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"I'm glad Nintendo is filling all these patents." They literally patented some mechanics that have been in games far before Zelda TOTK. If you aren't being sarcastic, that's the type of response that comes from someone who only buys Nintendo consoles and then gets sad that it can't run 3rd party games and/or games that have been on PC/Xbox/PS, but never on a Nintendo console. I was once like that too. Nothing but jealousy for 3rd party games.
 
Detachable controllers are better than the alternative as I assume they can be replaced independently from the main unit, and it might allow third-party controllers

Def gonna be more expensive than the Ally though. Still unsure if I'll grab a handheld PC, leaning towards just buying a controller for my phone to play games on the cloud instead 😅
 
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Shiba said:
From an ergonomic standpoint the controllers look better than the joycons already. That being said it’s Lenovo and their stuff if pretty crap so I don’t expect the hardware to be of the best quality.
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I’m personally very happy with my Lenovo Legion Notebook. I don‘t know where this is coming from but Lenovo laptops are generally well regarded when it comes to high performance but still usable as a working machine.

Their support is kinda crap though from what I am hearing, on par with Nintendo of Europe.
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
Problem is cost. It would more likely be the Wii U gamepad or the Xbox one Kinect all over again. VR is such a niche that any console device built in as a system level feature that everyone would have to pay for whether they like it or not, means that the company would have an extreme uphill battle to get the whole thing in to comes. It's be more like a zero threat than a triple one
Click to expand...
Your last sentence made me laugh. Such a nice sentence with the secret implication that "your VR idea is idiotic". Once I thought about it it's kinda like yeah, that might be too much, and people would see that as a "Nintendo has gone too far" like you hinted at with the motion sensing. That's fair. I want one personally but for widespread attention, better not to advertise or include VR.
 
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windowsreport.com

Exclusive: €799 Legion Go boasts QHD+ screen & blazing specs

Lenovo Legion Go will launch 1st of September with huge 8.8-inch screen, QHD+ resolution and a €799 starting price
windowsreport.com windowsreport.com
Legion Go confirmed launch details
Exclusive: Legion Go is priced at €799 with 8.8-inch QHD+ screen & Super Rapid Charge; arrives September 1
[...]
  • An official document confirms the Lenovo Legion Go rumors we've shared so far
  • The gaming handheld will be unveiled on September 1st, and you can buy it for €799/$799 in October
  • Impressively, the specs sheet details a massive 8.8” QHD+ (2560 x 1600) screen
  • Fast charging, bigger battery and a complete couch-to-go experience makes the Legion Go a worthy choice
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Lenovo Legion Go
Dimensions (L x W x H)Base Module: (mm): 210mm x 131mm x 20mm (inches): 8.27″ x 5.15″ x 0.79" Base Module w/ Controllers Attached: (mm): 299mm x 131mm x 41mm (inches): 11.8" x 5.15" x 1.61"
WeightControllers Detached: 640g (1.41lbs) Controllers Attached: 854g (1.88lbs)
ColorShadow Black
Display8.8" QHD+ (2560 x 1600) IPS; 16:10 10-point Touch (144Hz / 97% DCI-P3 / 500nits / 83%AAR
TouchpadMulti-finger
ProcessorUp to AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme with AMD RDNA Graphics
Memory16GB 7500Mhz LPDDR5X on board
Storage256GB / 512GB / 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2242
Operating SystemWindows 11 Home
Battery2-cell 49.2WHr Super Rapid Charge2 Controller battery capacity: 900mah2
Power AdapterUSB Type-C, 65W AC adapter Output: 20V DC, 3.25A, 65W Input: 100~240V AC 50/60 universal
PortsTop 3.5mm audio combo jack1 x USB Type-C (USB 4.0, DisplayPort™ 1.4, Power Delivery 3.0)1 x microSD card reader Bottom 1x USB Type-C (USB 4.0, DisplayPort 1.4, Power Delivery 3.0)
Control and InputGamepad Controls Legion L/RABXY buttonsD-padL & R hall effect joysticksL & R bumpersL & R analog triggersLegion L & R buttonsView button (L)Menu button (L)Trackpad (R)6 x assignable grip buttons1 x mouse wheel (R)1x mouse sensor (R)2 x controllers release buttons Haptics: HD haptics Gyro: 6-Axis IMU
Audio2 x 2W SpeakersDual-array near-field microphone
Connectivity2 x 2 Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 ax)3Starting from Bluetooth® 5.2
SoftwareLegion Space Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – Complimentary 3-month membership
 
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Looks cool but lordy $800. I don't care what the power is of that, or how cool it is, $800 is....not a gaming device price.
 
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Unless you're doing the two players thingie I don't get the reasoning behind using detachable controllers, even for docking (or their AR glasses stuff) I would rather use a standard controller.

Only handheld I've seen where it makes sense is the one where the tablet is effectively used as a VR screen also (tho the ergonomics don't look that great).
 
Adulfzen said:
Unless you're doing the two players thingie I don't get the reasoning behind using detachable controllers, even for docking (or their AR glasses stuff) I would rather use a standard controller.

Only handheld I've seen where it makes sense is the one where the tablet is effectively used as a VR screen also (tho the ergonomics don't look that great).
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Because split controllers are awesome. Good on Lenovo for trying to show people that things aren't better when both hands are bound together in your lap.
 
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My biggest issue with the thing is the size (and the weight doesn't inspire confidence either!). As someone with pretty mid-sized hands, I find the Deck to be borderline already in terms of ergonomics. The Legion Go, then, seems even less fitting for me, even though I like what they're offering here with regards to screen, battery, SoC, etc. 1440p isn't even that dumb a choice, tbf. Makes 720p games scale better.
 
The specs are very impressive, but that price... Just wow.
 
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Shiba said:
From an ergonomic standpoint the controllers look better than the joycons already. That being said it’s Lenovo and their stuff if pretty crap so I don’t expect the hardware to be of the best quality.
Click to expand...
So true. I spent 1000€ on my gaming laptop from lenovo and it was dreadful. So much so that I bought the Xbox just because I couldn't stand gaming on it. Then again, gaming laptops tend to be shit.

Imitatio said:
My biggest issue with the thing is the size (and the weight doesn't inspire confidence either!). As someone with pretty mid-sized hands, I find the Deck to be borderline already in terms of ergonomics. The Legion Go, then, seems even less fitting for me, even though I like what they're offering here with regards to screen, battery, SoC, etc. 1440p isn't even that dumb a choice, tbf. Makes 720p games scale better.
Click to expand...

I agree. The switch is fine for longer handheld gaming sessions, but I do tend to prefer smaller form factors. Larger and bulkier handhelds kind of defeat the purpose, IMO.

The even larger issue is, to me, the fact that the games I prefer to play handheld are (except for yakuza) already on the Switch. Neither the Deck nor any other handhelds really offer that much to make me spend 600 or 700€ just to play the same things that I play on the Switch (plus GOW and Yakuza I guess). I do get why they are more for enthusiasts, and if I were in a better financial situation, I might bite but for now... It is very much not for me.
 
Ozeiyo said:
The even larger issue is, to me, the fact that the games I prefer to play handheld are (except for yakuza) already on the Switch. Neither the Deck nor any other handhelds really offer that much to make me spend 600 or 700€ just to play the same things that I play on the Switch (plus GOW and Yakuza I guess). I do get why they are more for enthusiasts, and if I were in a better financial situation, I might bite but for now... It is very much not for me.
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The funny thing from my perspective is:
I feel very similarly / much the same way. The amount of games that I would like to play on the Switch, which aren't available there, has become vanishingly small. Nintendo's own games are there obviously, but also a lot of third-party games have arrived on the Switch in the meantime / over the years (for example, Ys, Persona, Monster Hunter, some Final Fantasy entries, and so on, as well as some anticipated indie games), which I'd have picked up elsewhere before. These things always justified me purchasing a PlayStation handheld before.
The odd exceptions that still exist here and there, such as Persona 3 Reload, are hardly an incentive to buy a completely new platform for it. Especially since in this specific case I'm still expecting a potential port for Nintendo hardware ;-)
And I say that already having a Steam Deck. However, since I got it, I've noticed exactly the same phenomenon as you just described: that everything that screams handheld gaming to me is already on the Switch. The deck is not really used too much in that respect. The 15 or so games I have on Steam that aren't currently available for the Switch (Deus Ex: Mankind Divided or Dragon Age Inquisition or Elden Ring, among others) don't really need to be played on a handheld either from my point of view; some of them in fact come across better on a larger device, even if it's just a laptop. Which then makes playing on the Deck (and in consequence, similar devices like it / the Legion Go and such) much less enticing. Particularly with price tags well above 500€ for these third party devices. The Deck is a bit easier to justify in terms of pricing, but going above that mark is out of the question for me in this hardware category and under these circumstances.

tl;dr: yeah, totally get you there and agree.
 
Ozeiyo said:
The even larger issue is, to me, the fact that the games I prefer to play handheld are (except for yakuza) already on the Switch. Neither the Deck nor any other handhelds really offer that much to make me spend 600 or 700€ just to play the same things that I play on the Switch (plus GOW and Yakuza I guess). I do get why they are more for enthusiasts, and if I were in a better financial situation, I might bite but for now... It is very much not for me.
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Seriously, if the Yakuza (sigh, and Sekiro) would make the jump to Switch, it would be the perfect system for me. Especially Yakuza.
 
the trailer for this got leaked as well.


the focus on Microsoft and Bethesda games is incredibly amusing.
it feels like MS is willing to do everything except make their own Xbox handheld by this point.
 
Krvavi Abadas said:
the trailer for this got leaked as well.


the focus on Microsoft and Bethesda games is incredibly amusing.
it feels like MS is willing to do everything except make their own Xbox handheld by this point.
Click to expand...

From the rumors, it looks like the Steam Deck hardware was supposed to be an Xbox portable.
 
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Krvavi Abadas said:
the trailer for this got leaked as well.


the focus on Microsoft and Bethesda games is incredibly amusing.
it feels like MS is willing to do everything except make their own Xbox handheld by this point.
Click to expand...

That probably is the better strategy at this point given how this segment of the market is going & their current issues in the console space.
 
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making an xbox handheld would be pointless when they struggle to support the Series they got now. asking devs to hit 3 targets would be a bridge too far, I suspect. supporting handheld PCs is easier since they don't really have to do anything. and they refuse to do anything despite windows being very unfriendly to gaming tablets
 
ILikeFeet said:
making an xbox handheld would be pointless when they struggle to support the Series they got now. asking devs to hit 3 targets would be a bridge too far, I suspect. supporting handheld PCs is easier since they don't really have to do anything. and they refuse to do anything despite windows being very unfriendly to gaming tablets
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Have the handheld run full blown Windows and make a modified environment akin to Tablet mode in Windows 10. Make specific configs for these games to run as well as they can on the hardware and disable stuff like edge and other apps from taking resources.
 
Smash Kirby said:
Have the handheld run full blown Windows and make a modified environment akin to Tablet mode in Windows 10. Make specific configs for these games to run as well as they can on the hardware and disable stuff like edge and other apps from taking resources.
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it's not like people at MS doesn't want to. MS just doesn't devote resources to it

arstechnica.com

Microsoft is experimenting with a Steam Deck-friendly “handheld mode” for Windows

Proof-of-concept includes Switch-style UI, better controller support, and more.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
 
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