Almost exactly a year ago, we publicly yearned for the day when more portable gaming PC makers could abandon Windows in favor of SteamOS (without having to resort to tricky unofficial workarounds). Now that day has finally arrived, with Lenovo announcing the upcoming Legion Go S as the first non-Valve handheld to ship with an officially licensed copy of SteamOS pre-installed. And Valve promises that it will soon provide a beta version of SteamOS for users to “download and test for themselves.”
As Lenovo’s slightly scaled-down follow-up to 2023’s massive Legion Go, the Legion Go S won’t feature its predecessor’s detachable controllers. But the new PC gaming handheld will be available in two distinct versions, one with the now-standard Windows 11 installation and another edition that’s the first to sport the (recently leaked) “Powered by SteamOS” branding.
The lack of a Windows license appears to contribute to a lower starting cost for the “Powered by SteamOS” edition of Legion Go S, which will start at $500 when it becomes available in May. Lenovo says the Windows edition of the device, available starting this month, will start at $730, with “additional configurations” available in May starting at just $600.
The Windows version of the Legion Go S will come in a different color and at a higher price.
Credit: Lenovo
The Windows and SteamOS versions of the Legion Go S will weigh 1.61 pounds with an 8-inch 1200p 120Hz LCD screen, up to 32GB of RAM, and either AMD’s new Ryzen Z2 Go chipset or an older Z1 core.
Be careful, Windows?
Valve said in a blog post on Tuesday that the Legion Go S will sport the same version of SteamOS currently found on the Steam Deck. The company’s work to bring SteamOS to Legion Go S “will also improve compatibility with other handhelds,” Valve said, and the company is “working on SteamOS support for more devices as well.” future”.
