For the better part of a decade, most of my gaming time has been relegated to long commutes and idle time in offices and waiting for friends to arrive — not exactly environments ripe for heavy gameplay. As a result, I’ve missed the largest milestones in the last several years of gaming — the joy of completing a Dark Souls game after hours of crushing defeat, the collective experience of playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the early days of COVID — in favor of mobile card games. That FOMO hasn’t been enough to kick my mobile-only gaming habit, but Lenovo’s newest handheld gaming console, the Legion Go, may have done the trick.
The Legion Go is one of several newer portable gaming consoles that run or can run Windows; the other models are the Asus ROG Ally, which also came out in 2023, and the Steam Deck, which was released in 2022. But in design, the Go has a lot more in common with the Nintendo Switch. Like the Switch, it has a kickstand on the back — something no other Windows-powered handheld console has — that you can use for propping it up on a surface. I can drop the Go in my bag, head to a bar or coffee shop, plop the console down at my table, and dive back into my latest Stardew Valley farm. Unlike the ROG Ally or the Steam Deck, the Legion Go has Switch-like removable controllers, which you can use when the device is in kickstand mode or connected to a TV. The Go is slightly larger than the Switch, but its display has a higher resolution and it’s about two inches bigger, so it looks better than the Switch’s display does.
Since it runs full-blown Windows, I’ve even paired a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse with it, and have used it to type out a few quick emails when I’ve been at my parent’s house without my laptop. Running Windows also means it has access to multiple game libraries like Steam and Epic Games (as well as cloud gaming and emulators), which is more than you can get on the Switch . I’d never played Battletoads & Double Dragon before, but now that I can play it right from my couch on the Go, I’m hooked on it (and its unbelievably catchy soundtrack). I never have to worry about running out of storage, either, as the Legion Go has a built-in microSD card slot that I can swap out for another once one gets filled up. It also has two USB-C ports (one on the top and one on the bottom), which you can use for charging or connecting an external GPU, which allows the Legion Go to perform on higher graphics settings and feel more like a traditional gaming PC setup.
My phone used to be my go-to console because its convenience simply couldn’t be beat: no matter where I went, my latest gaming fixation remained within arm’s reach. That worked great for keeping myself entertained, but it limited me to whatever games my phone is capable of running (emulators are now allowed but my iPhone still can’t play Baldur’s Gate 3). The Legion Go is the first console I’ve tried that’s given me nearly the same portability while providing more power than any phone could, plus access to way more games.
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