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Gizmodo
2 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Lenovo's Legion Go S With SteamOS Is the Only Real Alternative to a Steam Deck
For the last several years, most of us thinking about buying a handheld PC have heard the refrain 'just get a Steam Deck.' The reasons are two-fold: one, the OLED version at $550 is the cheapest of its class, and two, it's so damned easy to use thanks to SteamOS. No other company has come close to offering similar bang for the buck—until now. At $600, Lenovo's Legion Go S with SteamOS is a superior handheld for on-the-go gaming compared to the Windows version released earlier this year, which felt compromised because of Microsoft's desktop operating system. Lenovo also sells an $830 model with a better chip that may seem more enticing, but as you'll see in this review, you shouldn't feel bad about choosing to go cheaper. Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS The Lenovo Legion Go S is the only other handheld that comes with SteamOS out of the box, and it's so much better for it. Pros Cons The Legion Go S is a side-grade from the Lenovo Legion Go from 2023. It still has an 8-inch display, but it's a single-body design that doesn't sport the Legion Go's two detachable controllers ala the Nintendo Switch 2. As comfortable as it was, Windows combined with poor performance drastically hampered what it could be. I could tell from the jump that, at $730, it was relatively overpriced and underpowered—a real 'just get a Steam Deck' device. The new version is cheaper and comes with SteamOS, the same small screen-friendly Linux-based operating system made by Valve. I tested the $600 Legion Go S with SteamOS in a beautiful deep 'nebula nocturne' purple color that reminds me of the goth kid I wish I was in high school. It comes with a Ryzen Z2 Go processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. That's $50 more than a Steam Deck OLED with the same 512 GB storage capacity. Valve's $400 Steam Deck LCD is the cheapest of its kind, though it comes with only 256GB of storage. The more powerful Legion Go S with SteamOS, powered by an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and 32GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM, is close to what you might pay for an Asus ROG Ally X, which boasts a better battery life though slightly worse ergonomics. I have not tested this model, though. For shits and giggles, I grabbed the $730 white Windows-powered Legion Go S sent to me earlier this year and installed SteamOS on it to see what happens when you add more RAM to the mix, but I didn't experience a significant jump in performance between games. The Ryzen Z2 Go is the lower-power APU, or 'accelerated processing unit,' designed specifically for the cheaper-end Legion Go S models. Both the Ryzen Z1 Extreme and Z2 Go are a type of processor that combines the capabilities of a CPU and a GPU, or graphics processor. The Z2 Go is running on AMD's older Zen 3+ microarchitecture and has half the number of cores as the Z1 Extreme running on Zen 4. Either way, all Legion Go S models share the same IPS LCD display with a max resolution of 1,920×1,200. It doesn't support the deep blacks and contrast of the OLED panel on a Steam Deck, but it's still bright enough for playing indoors or outside. The larger display resolution can eat into performance with fewer GPU cores and less RAM. Few gamers want to drop their resolution specs lower than their display's max for the sake of performance, so the juggling act of in-game performance settings becomes that much more finicky. The important thing is whether the device can achieve a happy medium between playable frame rates and pretty graphics. In my experience, the Z2 Go with SteamOS can achieve a good equilibrium to play some intensive games, and it's so much better thanks to the Valve-made operating system. I conducted multiple rounds of tests with each Legion Go S plugged in and running at 30W. I set games to the max resolution they could. Both devices can hit 40W of TDP, aka thermal design power, which provides more power to the chip to help them eke out more frames from each game. Still, you likely won't play with higher power unless you plan to keep close to an electrical outlet. Overall, the Legion Go S with a Z2 Go outperformed the same hardware with Windows. Across games like Control and Baldur's Gate III, I saw a performance increase of close to 10 fps after I installed SteamOS. Cyberpunk 2077 at 1200p went from hitting 27 fps in benchmarks to netting nearly 40 fps. Windows introduces a host of background tasks that slow down performance, whereas svelte SteamOS doesn't have that problem. See at Best Buy Comparing the Legion Go S to the Steam Deck's custom AMD APU, Lenovo's SteamOS-powered device has an easy edge thanks to its wider range of TDP beyond the max 15W on Valve's device. With the higher degree of versatility, I could hit the same frame rates at 1200p versus 800p on the Steam Deck across several games, whether they were older, less intensive titles like Weird West or Hades II. In Monster Hunter Wilds benchmarks, the Legion Go S with Z2 Go at 1200p and 30 TDP managed to top the Steam Deck at 800p by a few frames. Of course, doubling the wattage will also affect battery life. If you want to play your games at their best, at the max resolution and graphics setting the system can handle, you'll get less than two hours of playtime. That's not much less than a Steam Deck at half the TDP, but the end result is that you'll need to have a charger handy or else limit your play sessions. SteamOS offers better frame rates than Windows, and if that wasn't enough, it's so much easier to use. Games are easier to download and faster to load, especially when they're built for Steam Deck and limit the number of extra launchers you need to click through. Unfortunately, the experience between playing on Steam Deck and SteamOS on third-party devices is not one-to-one. The big difference is how Valve calculates whether a game is 'SteamOS Compatible' versus 'Steam Deck Verified.' While Valve will determine whether a game can run at playable frame rates on a Steam Deck, it will only label whether a game is technically compatible on the Legion Go S. That means you may install a game expecting it to run well but find you can't even control it with thumbsticks. I managed to install my go-to apps on Steam Deck to the Legion Go S. This included Decky Loader for plugins like Junk Store, which offers easier access to my Epic Games library than going through the trouble of installing Heroic Launcher. I also managed to get EmuDeck operational, which means I could port all my retro games to the new system without any fuss. Did I miss access to apps like Razer Cortex as my preferred way to do PC-to-handheld streaming? Yes, but I would trade access to every Windows app for a clean UI without a second thought. When I'm not worried about popups asking me to sign in to OneDrive or dreading what will happen when I dare put the device to sleep while in-game, I can instead focus on playing my games at their best. In every way, the Legion Go S can become a Steam Deck, but there are still some major considerations if you're trying to decide between the two. For one, the Steam Deck OLED is lighter at 640g, or 1.41 pounds, versus Lenovo's 740g, or 1.6 pounds. That doesn't sound like much until you're feeling the strain in your arms after an extended play session sprawled out on your bed. The Legion Go S has slightly better ergonomics, but either device conforms to the hands better than most other similar devices on the market. What is missing from Lenovo's design are the Steam Deck's two trackpads. Those haptic trackpads add a surprising amount of versatility in some games, especially in CRPGs or strategy games like Tactical Breach Wizards. The minuscule trackpad on the Legion Go S didn't even seem to work out of the box. I had such a bad experience with it on the Windows version—with it vibrating like a rabbit dipped into a freezing-cold lake—I wasn't keen to fix it. I would also give the edge in audio quality to the Steam Deck for clear sound, but the Legion Go S' twin 2W speakers offer enough clarity that I didn't immediately feel the need to reach for a pair of headphones. I did experience odd audio bugs with my review unit that led to crackling when in-game, though it was inconsistent, and it wasn't present on the older model even after I installed SteamOS. The real distinction between Lenovo's and Valve's handhelds is the screen. You get close to 8 inches of real estate on the Legion Go S and a higher max resolution, but it's still LCD. If I have both screens sitting side-by-side, I can't help but gravitate toward the device with better contrast and those ever-touted 'inky' blacks. So the Legion Go S is currently your only out-of-the-box Steam Deck alternative, and that alone makes it worth your time, especially if you don't feel like loading an OS other than Windows. That being said, this year's future slate of handhelds is getting more interesting. We've yet to see any devices launch with AMD's Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, but we know they're coming from companies like MSI, Asus, and Lenovo themselves. The other big consideration is how Microsoft can finally make its OS workable on a 7-inch display with the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally. That upcoming handheld will potentially mark a turning point with Windows gaming, not just in performance but overall usability. If you want a handheld now, go with either the Legion Go S or Steam Deck. Either would serve you well. If you're still on the fence, you should wait to see what the future holds. See at Best Buy
Tom's Guide
a day ago
- Tom's Guide
New benchmarks reveal SteamOS beats Windows on handheld gaming performance — here's the results
We now have more proof that SteamOS is better than Windows 11 for gaming handheld performance. Ars Technica (via TechSpot) recently tested five PC games on the Lenovo Legion Go S running on SteamOS and Windows 11. With one exception, games run at higher frame rates on Valve's operating system than on Microsoft's. As someone who has tested the best handheld gaming consoles for years, I'm not surprised by the results. For testing, Ars Technica started with the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S and tested five 'high-end' 3D games using the games' respective built-in benchmarking tools at two different graphics and resolution settings. The site then installed Windows 11 on the handheld and downloaded updated drivers from Lenovo's support site, and ran those same benchmarks again. For good measure, Ars Technica also installed AMD-compatible drivers from Asus, since those drivers are closer to the drivers included with SteamOS. Per Ars Technica's numbers, we can see that SteamOS delivers improved performance in four of the five games the site tested. Borderlands 3's performance remained roughly the same on both operating systems, though Windows with Asus' drivers had a slight advantage. For games like Returnal, SteamOS has an extreme advantage over Windows. Sideloading the Asus drivers showed an improvement in Windows performance, but SteamOS still generally has the advantage. The Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS is a true Steam Deck rival and arguably puts Windows 11 handheld to shame thanks to its snappy interface and strong performance. While its fans can get overly loud and its battery life isn't great, SteamOS alone makes up for any shortcomings. I tested a handful of games on both the SteamOS and Windows 11 models of the Legion Go S, but the numbers I saw had a caveat since those machines have different components. Ars Technica tested games on the same machine, which provides a clearer picture of the performance differences. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. I'm not at all surprised by these results, given how SteamOS is specifically designed to work with gaming handhelds. Valve's operating system also doesn't have the overhead of Windows. That said, Windows has greater game compatibility than SteamOS, so that operating system might be preferable for more enthusiast PC gamers. If you're a more general gamer, however, SteamOS has a cleaner, handheld-friendly interface in addition to offering generally better gaming performance for some titles.
Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Steam Summer Sale 2025: 5 unmissable games with big discounts; from Borderlands 3 to Battlefield 1
The Steam Summer Sale 2025 has officially been rolled out by Valve. The company is offering steep discounts on PC games. The Steam Summer Sale 2025 will last from June 26 to July 10. Several titles are on offer by the company including Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Cyberpunk 2077, as per the official website. According to Screenrant, games like Terraria and Undertale are also available for a few dollars on Steam. Here are some of the top games you can get at the summer sale event, as per Screenrant. Steam summer sale is live now(Steam Official site) Also read: Death Stranding 2's super-fast load times have left fans in disbelief: 'Don't blink or you'll miss it' Battlefield 1: The game is being offered for a mere $1.99, a discount of 95 per cent from its original price. Battlefield 1's World War 1 setting makes it one of the most popular games in the series. The multiplayer game spans multiple theaters of the war. The new Operations game mode stimulates actual conflict from the frontlines, as per Screenrant. DOOM: Priced at $3.99 in the Steam Summer Sale 2025, Doom is a great game for anyone who loved the original Doom series. The game sees the Doom Slayer return to Mars for a new and gory campaign. Borderlands 3: The iconic game is being offered for $2.99. The looter shooter game was much criticized for how its antagonists were written when it was released. However, the amount of different guns and other weaponry make it easy to overlook the flaws of the game. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Missing the Marvel Cinematic Universe a lot? Try out this game for just $5.99. The single-player game features Rocket Racoon, Star-Lord, Gamora, Groot, and Drax star in a galaxy-spanning journey. You can be involved in the combat abilities of every Guardian. Death Stranding Director's Cut: With Death Stranding 2 in the news, it's the perfect time to pick up this title. The Director's Cut features more content and some improvements over the base game. The game is available for $15.99. FAQs What are the dates for the Steam Summer Sale? The sale will last from June 26 to July 10. What titles are on offer at the Steam Summer Sale? Discounted games include Battlefield 1 and Borderlands 3. Is Death Stranding 2 out? The game is presently out on Play Station 5, with PC versions expected at a later date.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Best Steam Summer Sale Games 2025: Will GTA 5, Baldur's Gate be discounted? Date, time and and Major Game deals Revealed
One of the most anticipated events for PC gamers is back. Valve's flagship Steam Summer Sale 2025 is set to begin on Thursday, June 26, bringing with it a flood of discounts on a wide range of popular titles. As always, the event is expected to stir both excitement and spending anxiety among millions of users worldwide. When and What Time Will the Sale Begin? The Steam Summer Sale will go live globally on June 26, 2025, and continue until July 10, 2025. The sale will commence at: 10:00 AM PT 12:00 PM CT 1:00 PM ET For Indian users, this translates to 10:30 PM IST. During this fortnight-long sale, users can expect significant markdowns across thousands of titles, including AAA releases, indie gems, and expansions. Best Steam Summer Sale Games Expected This Year While Valve has yet to drop its official teaser trailer showcasing the top offers, a preview list has confirmed some of the best Steam Summer Sale games set to be discounted this year, as mentioned in a report by Dailystar. These include: American Truck Simulator Death Stranding: Director's Cut The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria Slime Rancher 2 Lethal Company Foxhole Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Remastered Vampire Survivors Bodycam Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut Timberborn A Little to the Left Balatro PICO PARK 2 GTFO This curated selection of fan favourites and indie breakouts will headline the event, but they represent only a fraction of what's expected. Live Events Blockbuster Deals Already Surfacing Gamers are already bracing for major discounts on marquee titles. Although not tied directly to the Summer Sale, these pre-sale reductions offer a glimpse into what's coming: GTA 5 Enhanced Edition – 50% off Starfield – 40% off Dragon's Dogma II – 43% off Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition – 48% off Baldur's Gate 3 – 20% off Diablo 4 – 45% off Forza Motorsport – 50% off Resident Evil 4 Remake – 50% off The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – 80% off XCOM 2 – 95% off Seasonal favourites like Hades 2 , Manor Lords , Crusader Kings 3 , and Elden Ring are also likely to feature heavily with compelling discounts. How to Prepare for the Steam Sale As in previous years, users are advised to populate their Steam wishlists ahead of the sale. Valve automatically sends out alerts when listed games receive discounts. With discounts expected to mirror those from earlier seasonal sales such as Spring and Autumn, some of the deepest cuts could go up to 95%. Additionally, early indicators suggest that new titles such as Assassin's Creed Shadows , Monster Hunter Wilds , Kingdom Come Deliverance II , and DOOM: The Dark Ages could also be part of the upcoming deals. A Treat for PC and Steam Deck Users With the continued rise of handheld gaming, users of the Steam Deck OLED are expected to benefit from these deals just as much as desktop gamers. Valve's platform continues to set the benchmark for deep, platform-wide sales, offering exceptional value across genres. FAQs When does the Steam Summer Sale 2025 start and end? The Steam Summer Sale 2025 begins on Thursday, June 26, and will run until Thursday, July 10. The sale spans two weeks and will feature extensive discounts across thousands of games. Are new or upcoming titles expected to be part of the sale? Reports suggest that high-profile releases such as Assassin's Creed Shadows , Monster Hunter Wilds , Kingdom Come Deliverance II , and DOOM: The Dark Ages may also feature limited-time discounts.
Digital Trends
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
The hottest deals of the Steam Summer Sale you don't want to miss
As the temperatures rise, Steam makes the prices drop. That's right, it is time for the annual Steam Summer Sale 2025. This is the moment PC gamers look forward to all year, but our wallets fear. Each seasonal Steam sale is the best time to splurge on some games you've had on your backlog as they hit historic low prices. Everything from the best games on Steam to hit indies partake in this event to fill up your library with enough games to last you all summer long. A decade ago, you might have been able to browse through all the games on sale on your own to find the best deals, but not anymore. I have been digging through all the sales to find the best deals of the Steam Summer Sale 2025 and highlighting the ones you will want to jump on while they last. When is the Steam Summer Sale 2025? The Steam Summer Sale 2025 started on June 26 at 10 am PT and will end on July 10. That gives you a nice two-week window to grab any deals that catch your eye. Recommended Videos Best deals for the Steam Summer Sale 2025 Black Myth: Wukong – $48 was $60 Monster Hunter Wilds – $56 was $70 Dragon Age: The Veilguard – $30 was $60 Death Stranding Director's Cut – $16 was $40 Blasphemous – $2 was $25 Steamworld Dig – $1 was $10 Persona 5 Royal – $24 was $60 Marvel's Spider-Man 2 – $48 was $60 Metaphor: ReFantazio – $42 was $70 Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth – $42 was $70 Cyberpunk 2077 – $21 was $60 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 – $35 was $60 Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy – $6 was $60 Resident Evil 4 – $20 was $40 Best Steam Summer Sale 2025 deals under $20 Red Dead Redemption 2 – $15 was $60 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – $10 was $40 Halo: The Master Chief Collection – $10 was $40 The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series – $12 was $50 Anno 1800 – $15 was $60 Dave the Diver – $12 was $20 Hogwarts Legacy – $15 was $60 Half-Life: Alyx – $18 was $60 Dead Cells – $12 was $25 Best Steam Summer Sale 2025 deals under $10 We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie – $8 was $30 Star Wars Battlefront 2 – $4 was $40 Doom – $4 was $20 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – $8 was $40 Dead by Daylight – $8 was $20 Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy – $4 was $40 Robocop: Rogue City – $5 was $50 Furi – $2 was 20 Borderlands 3 – $3 was $60 Titanfall 2 – $4 was $30
