As a 46-year-old dad with a full-time job, I don’t have time for fiddly setups or half-baked software. If a handheld says it can play my PC games on the couch after the kids go down, I expect it to just work. The Lenovo Legion Go 2 feels perfect on paper—big OLED, beefy AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, detachable controllers—but after a few weeks, I’m convinced it’s brilliant hardware hamstrung by Windows and design choices that get in the way of actually playing games. Australian pricing cements the premium: the Z2 Extreme 32GB/1TB config hovers around A$1,800+ depending on retailer and promos. That’s laptop money, and it should deliver a frictionless handheld experience, but sadly, it doesn’t.
The hardware design is clever and conflicted. Like it’s predecessor, the Legion Go 2 is a large, dense slab with generous hand grips that feel secure but contribute to its heft, and the chassis is sturdy with a wide, stable kickstand that makes tabletop play natural and—given the weight—often necessary. The detachable controllers slide off with a firm rail mechanism and reattach cleanly,(much cleaner than previous model) though the device’s balance shifts noticeably when they’re off, reinforcing that stand-first posture.
Build quality feels premium, with tight tolerances and minimal flex, but for longer sessions it tips from portable to luggable. Short bursts are fine, yet my wrists complained, and I’m 6’4” with not-small hands. In terms of ergonomics, the Xbox Ally is far more comfortable, hell even the Legion Go S is a more pleasant device to hold. The controller layout gives you options—arguably too many—and while muscle memory helps, that FPS joystick mode remains a party trick I’ll never use.
Ports are practical and placed for flexibility. Dual USB‑C—one on top, one on the bottom—handle charging and display output, which suits docked or tabletop setups without cable acrobatics, and a microSD slot tucked along the side expands storage without drama. There’s a 3.5 mm headphone jack for wired audio, and top-mounted vents push heat away from your grip so you don’t cook your palms. The dual USB‑C arrangement is a quiet win for quick living-room swaps, though cable strain can still be awkward in pure handheld mode. In day-to-day use, being able to charge from either orientation and drop to a monitor cleanly are small conveniences that add up.
The screen is sensational. Lenovo’s 8.8-inch OLED is one of the best I’ve seen on a handheld: colours pop, blacks are inky, HDR has real punch, and high refresh makes lighter titles glide. I had a proper “wow” moment watching Netflix, then jumped into games and felt the same. It’s the kind of panel that makes you want to keep playing. If visuals are your thing, this display alone is a reason to consider the Go 2, even if the rest of the experience doesn’t always match its promise.
Performance is strong but not transformative. The Z2 Extreme isn’t a huge leap over the Z1 Extreme, yet it pushes smaller, stylised games beautifully and can coax AAA titles into playable territory with smart settings, TDP, and resolution tweaks. Initial impressions were quite disappointing with games barely getting 30fps with low settings.
In a bizarre decision by Lenovo, the Go 2 ships with VRAM set to 2GB by default, which severely hamstrings performance in modern games that expect more headroom for textures and shaders. The fix exists, but it’s buried in the BIOS rather than exposed in Legion Space, and asking busy players to dive into firmware menus just to unlock expected performance feels out of step with the handheld’s “pick up and play” promise. Once you increase VRAM, the device behaves more like its specs suggest, with games like CyberPunk 2077 running at 50-60fps. Yet the fact you need to fiddle at that level reinforces how much this platform relies on tinkering to shine.
Battery life fits the Windows-handheld pattern: around two hours in modern AAA at roughly 25W, nudging to ninety minutes if you chase fidelity at native res, and just over two hours at 800–900p in something like Cyberpunk 2077 or the Outer Worlds 2. AA and indie fare—Hades II, Dead Cells, Vampire Survivors—sail past three hours, and with a 60Hz cap and modest power, four hours is doable. For streaming or local video, the OLED and media engine stretch a single charge comfortably across an evening without touching a wall.
That gorgeous OLED begs to run at native 1920×1200, but full-res modern games often stutter even on the Z2 Extreme. To claw back frames, you drop resolution or dial down settings, landing in 800–900p “looks good enough” territory rather than “wow, OLED heaven.” It’s a mismatch: the panel feels overqualified for what the chip can consistently deliver under Windows, and when you’re chasing fluid motion in demanding titles, the compromise is constant. The experience swings between brilliance and irritation, depending on the game and your tolerance for tinkering.
Windows is still the fun sponge. Controller stability can wobble after sleep or hot-plugging; Steam and the Xbox app sometimes fight over which input is in charge, and Windows’ mixed DPI scaling leaves launchers with tiny text or clipped buttons. Aggregation doesn’t guarantee one-click launches either; some titles punt you into auxiliary launchers or surprise you with logins. More than once a game spawned behind a system prompt so I had to alt-tab to chase focus, and overlays collide—Steam, Xbox, Radeon, Legion Space—until a performance HUD covers a menu or a keybind overlaps with a game action.
Even toggling HDR or enforcing 120/144Hz per title is temperamental: sometimes it sticks, sometimes the game ignores it, sometimes performance nosedives until you relaunch. For fairness’ sake, Microsoft has released a Full Screen Experience for handhelds to make Windows more console-like. I’d already returned the Legion Go 2 by then, so I can’t speak to how much it truly fixes the pain I felt. But if my experience with the Xbox Ally is anything to go by, uhm, yeah it won’t make that much of a difference.
Legion Space tries to be helpful but it’s not a friction killer. It gives you a clean library view, per-game profiles, and deep mapping, yet it doesn’t really do anything you can’t do manually in Windows. I found myself rushing into the Xbox app or Steam rather than using the Legion Space. The settings overlay is handy though, letting you quickly change settings and performance on the fly. But, I don’t like that I spent way too much time observing the framerate counter, messing with performance profiles every time I played. A console should be just pick and play and Windows handhelds for the most part, simply aren’t.
This is the heart of it: despite everything Lenovo packed in—the OLED, detachable controllers, kickstand, beefy silicon—the Legion Go 2 doesn’t remove the friction from quick 10–30 minute sessions. My life is bursts: a half-hour while dinner’s in the oven, twenty minutes after bedtime, a quick run before work. In those windows, Windows plus Legion Space still makes me fiddle, and the little snags turn a short session into setup. I shouldn’t have to babysit a PC; I should press play, and the Go 2 too often asks me to do the former.
Verdict
The Lenovo Legion Go 2 is a gorgeous, powerful handheld that keeps tripping over Windows and its own ambitions. The OLED will wow you, the kickstand will save your wrists, and the controllers give you options you’ll mostly ignore. But the weight, button clutter, Windows hurdles, and the mismatch between screen and real-world performance make it hard to recommend as a primary handheld for most people.
Unless you specifically want that spectacular OLED and are willing to live the Windows life, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is the better buy for most people. It may have an aging screen but it has similar performance, its far more ergonomic and its several hundreds cheaper. But if you have the wherewithal to tinker and tweak, the Legion Go 2 is the ultimate handheld at the moment.
Lenovo Australia kindly loaned the Legion Go 2 to PowerUp for the purpose of this review
