At its recently concluded keynote presentation at IFA 2023 in Berlin, Germany, Lenovo announced several new products and solutions for hardcore gamers, including the company’s much-awaited first foray into the gaming-handheld scene.

(Update, November 8: We have the Lenovo Legion Go’s pricing and release details for the Philippine market!)

That’s right, the much-awaited Lenovo Legion Go is now official to give devices like the Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally a run for their money and consumers potentially another option in the now-competitive handheld PC market. And while it may have taken a few months for Lenovo to develop its own counter, the Legion Go might just be worth the wait.

For starters, the Lenovo Legion Go price-matches the ASUS ROG Ally at $699 (P39,698 converted) for the model equipped with an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor. There’s no official word just yet, but the lower-end Legion Go powered by the vanilla Ryzen Z1 could go for $599 (P34,019), too, just like the base variant of the Ally. The Legion Go is set to go on sale sometime in October in the U.S. Pricing and availability in the Philippines haven’t been confirmed, but we don’t expect Lenovo to deviate too much from its international price strategy.

Lenovo Legion Go official product video

Like the ROG Ally, which starts at P39,995 ($704) in the Philippines, Lenovo’s new gaming handheld brings the power and versatility of the Windows 11 platform to a mobile form factor and can be kitted with either an AMD Ryzen Z1 or Z1 Extreme APU alongside 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB of storage. Notably, it also boasts a slightly bigger, sharper, and faster display than both the ROG Ally and Steam Deck, sporting an 8.8-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 IPS display with a 144Hz refresh rate.

Unlike its rivals, though, the Legion Go has a Switch-esque design, which offers players the option to completely detach the controllers for casual multiplayer games a la Nintendo’s portable console. It also comes with an integrated kickstand, something we think the competition is sorely missing, in addition to a trackpad, a scroll wheel, and plenty of rear paddle buttons for more control.

Plus, the Legion Go has a bigger battery than what the Steam Deck and ROG Ally offer, which should lead to longer play sessions on a single charge. This is a well-thought-out handheld on paper. It’s almost as if the extra months of time working on the Legion Go has allowed Lenovo to really evaluate and improve on Valve and ASUS’ designs.

Lenovo Legion Go specs

• 8.8-inch IPS display, QHD resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, 16:9 aspect ratio
• ABXY face buttons, shoulder triggers, LR joysticks, D-pad, paddle buttons, trackpad, scroll wheel
• Removable controllers
• Integrated kickstand
• AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor/Ryzen Z1 APU
• RDNA3 up to 2.7GHz GPU
• 16GB LPDDR5X RAM
• Up to 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD
• microSD card slot
• 49Wh battery (handheld)
• 900Wh (controller)
• 65-watt PD charging
• Microsoft Windows 11

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