Virtually precisely a yr in the past, we have been publicly yearning for the day when extra moveable gaming PC makers may ditch Home windows in favor of SteamOS (with out having to resort to touchy unofficial workarounds). Now, that day has lastly come, with Lenovo announcing the upcoming Legion Go S as the primary non-Valve handheld to return with an formally licensed copy of SteamOS preinstalled. And Valve guarantees that it’ll quickly ship a beta model of SteamOS for customers to “obtain and take a look at themselves.”
As Lenovo’s barely downsized followup to 2023’s massive Legion Go, the Legion Go S will not characteristic the removable controllers of its predecessor. However the brand new PC gaming handheld will are available two distinct variations, one with the now-standard Home windows 11 set up and one other version that is the primary to sport the (recently leaked) “Powered by SteamOS” branding.
The dearth of a Home windows license appears to contribute to a decrease beginning price for the “Powered by SteamOS” version of the Legion Go S, which is able to begin at $500 when it is made out there in Might. Lenovo says the Home windows version of the machine—out there beginning this month—will begin at $730, with “further configurations” out there in Might beginning as little as $600.
Each the Home windows and SteamOS variations of the Legion Go S will weigh in at 1.61 lbs with an 8-inch 1200p 120 Hz LCD display, as much as 32GB of RAM, and both AMD’s new Ryzen Z2 Go chipset or an older Z1 core.
Be careful, Home windows?
Valve said in a blog post on Tuesday that the Legion Go S will sport the identical model of SteamOS at present discovered on the Steam Deck. The corporate’s work getting SteamOS onto the Legion Go S may even “enhance compatibility with different handhelds,” Valve mentioned, and the corporate “is engaged on SteamOS help for extra units sooner or later.”
