Tag Lenovo

I always love that special moment where an innovative tech device launches and I get to play with it for the first time. When I first got my hands on the Steam Deck, I felt like a kid on Christmas as I experimented with PC gaming on the go. It’s a cherished moment, but it’s not what I actually look forward to most whenever a new product category launches. My real excitement is reserved for a few years after that moment when competitors have to get creative to stand out in a new frontier that’s rapidly flooding with copycats. If you want to understand why I love that period so much, look no further than Legion Go.

It’s not that Lenovo’s Steam Deck competitor is a better alternative to Valve’s hit system. In a lot of ways, it’s a messy experiment that’ll need a lot of post-launch tweaking to get it up to speed with its rivals. It is, however, a piece of hardware that emphasizes the fun of good-spirited tech competition. In an effort to stand out, the Legion Go takes some wild swings that make it the most unique portable PC on the market today. It may not be the best option you can buy right now, but it could be the most influential one down the line.

The Legion Go checks a lot of the right boxes when it comes to its price, power, and the fantastic screen that sets a new bar for this kind of device. Combine that with its Nintendo Switch-inspired design and you’ve got a flexible gaming device with a lot of good ideas. For all its creativity, though, Lenovo often forgoes practicality in the name of innovation. It makes for a respectable, but niche gaming device that’s equally loaded with features and caveats.

Design and display

I’d bet that just about anyone who lays eyes on the Legion Go for the first time will have the same first reaction: “It’s that big!?” Yes, Lenovo’s system is Godzilla compared to what’s out on the market today. Weighing in at 1.88 pounds, it’s far heavier than the 1.65 pound Steam Deck or 1.34 pound ROG Ally. That’s a clue right off the bat that the Legion Go isn’t exactly the best option for those who want an easy on-the-go experience with minimal strain.

Lenovo does make the most of that hulking form factor. While it’s heavier than the Steam Deck, it’s about the same length and width as that device. The difference is in its 5.16-inch height — versus. the Steam Deck’s 4.6 inches — but there’s a good reason for all that extra space: the Legion Go’s best-in-class display. The handheld boasts an 8.8 inch, 16:10 QHD+ IPS display with impressive specs. It’s a 1600p screen and has a 144Hz refresh rate. Onboard tools give players room to dial that down to either 1200p or 800p, and take the refresh rate down to 60Hz if need be. It’s a big, bright, colorful display that goes above and beyond for a handheld like this.

The build quality is largely high across the board. It’s a sturdy system that’s easy to grip, even if it can be a strain to hold for long periods of time. What’s perhaps most impressive is its built-in kickstand that allows players to set the device up in a tabletop mode, just like the Switch. It’s a strong hinge that allows for a range of angles. It can get angled enough that I can plug something into its bottom USB4 charger while playing.

The package is rounded out by some standard features: Bluetooth 5.1 support, up to 1TB of storage, a microSD card reader, a headphone jack, two USB4 ports, and sizable vents on the top and back. It even comes with a handy storage case with a built-in charging slot. The only area where it isn’t up to snuff with the competition is with its weak speakers, which can’t get as loud as the ROG Ally’s — a shame considering it’s a device that primarily shines in tabletop mode. It’s also worth noting that its microSD card slot isn’t too far off from its top vents, a design decision that caused broken SD cards on the ROG Ally. It’s too early to say if the Legion Go avoids that problem, but the slot is spaced far enough away from the vents that it shouldn’t be a problem in theory.

Controls

The Legion Go’s biggest creative swings come from its approach to controls. At first glance, they seem standard. It’s anchored by two sturdy hall effect joysticks, seemingly high-quality face buttons, and responsive triggers. As a one-up on the Ally, it even has a right trackpad for those who want to simulate a mouse. It’s not nearly as responsive as the Steam Deck’s pads, but it’s a nice extra for those who were disappointed that the ROG Ally didn’t have any of its own.

That setup isn’t without its flaws. The trackpad is a little low for comfort and it sports a surprisingly poor D-pad that’s not ideal for diagonal inputs. Its most frustrating flaw comes from its baffling menu button placements. The two buttons sitting where every major controller’s menu buttons are actually open up Lenovo’s Legion Space app. The proper menu buttons are on the bottom of the left controller, which takes a lot of brain-rewiring to get used to.

What’s more commendable is that the controllers can actually be detached from the system like (very thick) Joy-cons. That, combined with the kickstand, makes the Legion Go more enticing as a tabletop device than a handheld. I’ve spent most of my gaming time treating it like a small laptop with a powerful display. That’s an ideal use case, as the heavy design and loud vents don’t make it the most portable-friendly device.

Lenovo seems to understand where the Legion Go shines most and has built its most distinct feature around that. FPS mode is a unique setting that turns the right controller into a mouse when docking it in a magnetic circle built to slide around a table. It’s an inventive idea that takes Nintendo’s Joy-con setup to another level. Though like many of the Legion Go’s defining features, it’s more a neat party trick than a practical way to play.

I’ve found that FPS mode is great for some specific games that are mostly controlled by mouse clicks. Gears Tactics is a perfect use case here, as I can move the controller around and click to do just about anything. Ironically, it’s far less useful in first-person shooters — the very genre the mode is named after. In trying to play Battlebit Remastered in the mode, I’d quickly realize the inherent flaw of a mouse and keyboard mode with no keyboard. I could aim and shoot just fine, but I simply didn’t have enough buttons to strafe, heal, drive vehicles, etc.

The Legion Go tries to account for that with the addition of several extra buttons, including a scroll wheel and four back buttons. Unfortunately, the placement of those extras isn’t very graceful. The scroll wheel is awkwardly tucked under the right trigger, and the back buttons on the right controller are far too easy to press when gripping the device naturally. To make matters worse, there doesn’t appear to be any way to create custom controller profiles for individual games at present. All of that makes FPS mode a good idea with cumbersome execution.

Specs and performance

Performance is another high point that puts the Legion Go ahead of its competitors on paper, but with asterisks. The capable system contains an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme and 16 GB of memory. That theoretically puts it right next to the ROG Ally, something we’ve been able to back up with our testing so far. It’s frankly astonishing that I can run the Xbox Series X-exclusive Forza Motorsport on the device and make enough tweaks to get it running well at around 40 frames per second (fps). Even if it requires me to dial down to low settings to achieve it, that’s still “next-gen” power in a small form factor.

Cross-generation games yielded some impressive results when running benchmark tests. Immortals Fenyx Rising was able to hit 62 fps when running at 800p and a custom 30-watt thermal mode. We saw similar results with the more demanding Cyberpunk 2077, which hit 61 fps at that setting. Toggling the wattage down to 15 still gave us solid performance, with Cyberpunk hitting 37 fps. Forza Motorsport didn’t fare too badly there either as it hovered right under the 30 mark. With the right tweaks (and a willingness to sacrifice quality), even brand new releases fare well on it.

The Legion Go doesn’t give players a ton of ways to tweak their settings, but it meets the minimum for customization. Players have the option to swap between three resolutions, two refresh rates, and some OS power modes. More powerful are its thermal mode options, which let players dial the wattage anywhere from 5 to 30. That’s the most impactful tool in the suite, as games see a significant performance boost when maxing the slider out (in our tests, it saved 15 to 20 frames over the Balanced thermal setting).

That’s all great for 800p, but how does the handheld fare using its defining 1600p resolution? That’s a different story. The resolution boost demands maxed wattage in order to approach a smooth experience, and even that’s a tall order. Cyberpunk 2077 barely clears the 30 fps mark at 20W and Forza Motorsport taps out at 23 (both running in low settings). Bumping the wattage any lower produces some expectedly poor results. Immortals Fenyx Rising only hit the 21 fps mark in those tests, while Forza struggled at 15.

As you can imagine, great power comes at the expense of battery. In my battery drain tests, Cyberpunk 2077 took the device down to 0% in about two hours. That was running at 800p on a balanced thermal setting, which is on the lower end of the machine’s power. If you’re trying to hit smooth frame rates and high visual quality in modern games, the battery can easily drain in closer to an hour. None of this is too shocking, but I’ve found that the battery life doesn’t bug me as much as it did on the Ayaneo 2S. I have enough wattage and resolution customization options to get some extra life out of it. Though what’s more crucial is that the Legion Go’s staying power is greater in its tabletop mode, where I’d ideally leave it plugged in and maxed out anyways. It’s one of many areas where the added versatility works to Lenovo’s advantage here.

Onboard tools and UI

While power and performance are always a high priority with devices like this, a good user interface that makes it easy to use can go a long way. Just look at the Steam Deck, which has a clean SteamOS interface that makes it feel as polished as a home console. It’s an area that Lenovo unfortunately doesn’t nail down  with the Legion Go, selling its impressive device short at launch.

The good (and sometimes bad) news is that the device runs Windows 11. It’s essentially a Windows tablet, which makes it easy to install and load up any game launcher. I was able to turn my machine into an ideal Xbox Game Pass device, playing games like Jusant on it from start to finish. There was some friction to get that going smoothly, as Windows has plenty of annoying quirks that are hard to work around on a smaller screen. It took a day of settings tweaking to get everything working right, and I hit some puzzling roadblocks along the way (like Diablo 4 freezing at the Blizzard logo every time I’s try to boot it), but many of the Legion Go’s problems are simply Windows problems you have to live with.

What is within Lenovo’s control, however, is its poor Legion Space app. Like the ROG Ally, the Legion Go contains its own custom software that lets players tweak settings, organize games, and more. The app even has its own game storefront filled with exclusive deals. But as it stands now, Legion Space is a low-quality tool that’ll need a lot of post-launch support to get it in a healthy place. Text awkwardly wraps onto two lines, images are blurry, the app doesn’t consistently open when I press the menu buttons. It feels only a little more refined than Ayaneo’s custom app on its own devices.

Other quirks are downright weird. Pressing the right menu button opens the performance overlay, but when closing it and pressing it again, it opens up a left-side quick menu instead. It often takes three button presses to get to the menu you’re actually trying to access. When opening the performance menus, my inputs are still detected on the game below. A lot of these issues are fixable and I imagine we’ll see Lenovo steadily improve the tool over time just as Asus and Valve have done with their own devices. It just lends to the overall feeling that the Legion Go may have been rushed to market to capitalize on a moment.

Like the Steam Deck, the Legion Go feels a bit like an experimental prototype that’ll pave the way for a better second model. Lenovo has its head in the right place when it comes to innovation, but there’s a lot of “proof of concept” work happening here. Its 1600p display isn’t really practical for gaming right now, its button layout is a mess, and Legion Space is no SteamOS at present. Even so, the creative handheld still stands out in a field that’s filling up fast. It fills a niche for those who still want to retain as much of the PC gaming experience as possible in a handheld. That use case won’t be enough to convince most people to drop another $700, but it’ll be a perfect fit for the right audience.

Sometimes that’s about the best result you can hope for when the competition is stiff.

Editors’ Recommendations

Not everyone needs the fastest CPU and the highest-quality high-resolution display. Sometimes, a machine with a last-gen CPU and a decent Full HD display is plenty for the web browsing, email, and Office applications that make up many users’ workflows. This can be true for students, and sometimes buyers are looking for a secondary machine to augment one of the best laptops you can buy.

That’s where budget laptops come in. The definition is a loose one, with some machines costing a bit more but offering a lot more to go with it. But they’ll save you hundreds over midrange and premium laptops that are overkill for what you need. This list will provide several options, including for gamers and those with the lowest budgets. You can check out our best laptops under $500 and best laptops under $300 lists for even more affordable options.

Dell XPS 13 (9315)

A surprisingly affordable ‘premium’ Windows laptop

Why you should buy this: It’s an amazing laptop for under $1,000.

Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a premium laptop for much less money,

Why we picked the Dell XPS 13 9315:

Yes, the XPS 13 9315 costs $849 for its entry-level model, which is at the high end of the budget range. But it makes this list because you simply won’t find a Windows laptop for less than $1,000 that can match the XPS 13’s excellent build quality, attractive aesthetic, and outstanding battery life.

For that low price, you get a 9-watt Intel Core i5-1230U CPU with 10 cores and 12 threads that delivers competent productivity performance. It’s not the fastest laptop we’ve reviewed, but it’s sufficient to get your work done. As a lower-watt part, though, it affords outstanding battery life. You even get a 512GB SSD, which is a lot at this price, with a build quality and good looks that are unusual without spending a lot more.

Asus ZenBook 14 OLED

Best budget laptop

Why you should buy this: The features and battery life are game-changers at the price.

Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a beautiful display for less money,

Why we picked the Asus ZenBook 14 OLED:

Sometimes, companies have to cut corners to fit a laptop into a $700 price. The display is often one casualty, with a panel that might suffer in terms of color quality and contrast. The ZenBook 14 OLED is an exception, offering a spectacular OLED display that’s bright, colorful, and displays inky blacks. It’s equal to displays on laptops costing twice as much.

But that’s not all. The AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 CPUs on offer provide competent productivity performance to go with great battery life. And, the laptop’s build quality is excellent, with a great keyboard and touchpad with an LED numeric keyboard. It’s a tremendous value all-around, landing it on our list of best laptops.

Surface Laptop Go 2

An excellent budget laptop for students

Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget laptop for students.

Who it’s for: Students, buyers on a budget.

Why we picked the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2: 

Students usually want a few things in a cheap laptop — something that’s easy to carry around, that provides good enough performance for getting their homework done, and something that’s not going to embarrass them when they pull it out to take notes. Oh, and it needs to be affordable. Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Go 2 meets all those criteria — making it one of the best laptops for students in college.

We’ve linked to our Surface Go review above because the biggest change to the Surface Go 2 is the upgrade to 11th-gen Core CPUs. Graphics have been upgraded to Intel Iris Xe, the entry-level storage has been doubled to 128GB, there’s an improved webcam, and the laptop ships with Windows 11 Home instead of Windows 10 in S mode. The Surface Laptop Go 2 is also a highly mobile device with a 12.4-inch IPS touchscreen display that, although it’s not quite FHD resolution, is still of very high quality and a pleasure to use.

If you want a newer version, the Surface Laptop Go 3 is available, but we weren’t very impressed.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3

A Chromebook 2-in-1 that won’t break the bank

Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget Chromebook.

Who it’s for: Anyone on a budget who doesn’t mind sacrificing performance for extreme value.

Why we picked the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3:

Chromebooks have become popular budget choices over the last few years, and many have won us over as well. One style that hasn’t done as well as some others is the detachable Chrome OS tablet. That changed with the introduction of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet, now in its third generation, which not only is a very usable tablet but one that represents tremendous value thanks to the included kickstand cover and detachable keyboard.

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3’s low price brings some limitations and basic specs. Its Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage don’t deliver stellar performance, although it’s good enough for the kinds of tasks you’ll want to run on it. The display is very nice, with a 15:9 2K (2000 x 1200) resolution that’s not as pixel sharp as Apple’s baseline iPad that the Duet competes against. If you want a tablet for web browsing, light productivity work, and consuming media, then the Chromebook Duet 3 and Chrome OS have you covered.

HP Victus 15

Solid gaming for less than $1,000

Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget gaming laptop.

Who it’s for: Gamers and only gamers.

Why we picked the HP Victus 15:

Although the best gaming laptops are typically expensive, the HP Victus 15 is a great example of why they don’t need to be. Often priced at less than $900, you get some impressive specs. That includes a 13th-gen Intel Core i5-13500H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD), with options for faster CPUs, more powerful graphics, extra and faster storage, and memory if you don’t mind spending a little more. Every model comes with a 15.6-inch, 1080p IPS display, and for just a little more, that display can run at a refresh rate of 144Hz.

With a decent build quality and surprisingly good gaming performance, the Victus 15 offers an all-around solid gaming package at an impressively competitive price. It does have its weak points, most notably that the starting graphics card isn’t as powerful as what you’ll see in more expensive laptops, but it’s still enough for entry-level gaming.

Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Laptop

A business laptop for less

Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget business laptop.

Who it’s for: Office workers who want to save the cash for other investments.

Why we picked the Dell Inspiron 15 3000:

Whether you’re typing up another spreadsheet or winding down with a game at the end of a long workday, the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 strikes a great balance as a business laptop. It features powerful and efficient general computing power, like a 12th-generation Intel Core i7-1255U CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. That’s a lot of computer for just $700, even if Intel did just announce their 13th-gen Core processors.

With the typical Inspiron build quality, we’d expect this system to borrow several great design features from the more premium XPS range but make them available in a more affordable form. It’s not the lightest laptop at just under 4 pounds, but it has a great, spill-resistant keyboard, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth connectivity, and a top-mounted 720p webcam for conferencing.

The Dell Inspiron 15 3000 also comes in an attractive business black paint job, which helps it fit in with any setup.

Microsoft Surface Go 3

The all-around best 2-in-1 for less

Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget 2-in-1.

Who it’s for: Anyone who needs the on-the-go mobility of a small, 2-in-1.

Why we picked the Microsoft Surface Go 3:

The Surface Go 3 may be limited by its small size and, at the entry level, by a low-powered Intel Pentium processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage — the processor can be upgraded to an Intel Core i3 and twice the RAM and storage for $230 more — but it offers something never before seen in the Windows world: A truly budget-minded 2-in-1 laptop. Its build is every bit as solid as its bigger sibling, the Surface Pro 8, and it boasts a beautiful, bright display to boot. The best part? It’s actually thin and light enough to be held in one hand like a proper tablet, which is a key reason why we see this as the best budget 2-in-1 laptop.

While performance doesn’t feel as smooth as on something like an iPad or even a Chromebook, those devices can’t do quite as many things as the Surface Go 3, which runs a full version of Windows 10. On the battery front, however, it’s a bit lacking. That’s its most unfortunate compromise since this is a device made for portability. Also, we still wish the excellent Type Cover keyboard and Surface Pen came bundled in.

Apple MacBook Air M1

The only MacBook that could be considered ‘cheap’

Why you should buy this: It’s the only modern MacBook you’ll find for well under $1,000.

Who it’s for: MacBook fans who don’t want to pay thousands for a newer model.

Why we picked the Apple MacBook Air M1:

The MacBook Air M1 isn’t the latest and greatest MacBook, but it still holds it own in a number of ways. Its performance is still excellent, competing easily with recent generation Windows laptops. It also sports impressive battery life, with close to 20-hours between charges. In typical MacBook fashion, too, the build quality is excellent, and the display is Apple’s usual Retina-grade with a high resolution and crisp, bright picture.

The design is lightweight and portable, making it good for use in transit or when commuting, and it supports the fastest possible Thunderbolt 3 connections (up to 40 Gbps) so will work well with any external display or accessory. There’s not a lot of storage space in this base model, but there’s enough there to get you started and external or cloud storage can make up the short fall.

This model is a few years old, but still holds its own well. Grab one while you still can.

Acer Aspire 3

Best cheap Windows laptop

Why you should buy this: It’s performance is impressive for the price.

Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a capable laptop for a fair price.

Why we picked the Acer Aspire 3:

For basic business and entertainment use, you’ll find little better than the Acer Aspire 3. It’s a very affordable laptop using a new CPU design – although based on an older Zen 2 architecture – with four cores and support for eight simultaneous threads. It has some fast DDR5 memory and a full half terabyte of SSD space, which gives you plenty of room for documents, films, and and for backing up your important data.

The onboard Radeon GPU is fine for the most casual of gaming, but it won’t be powerful enough for anything taxing. With Thunderbolt 3 you could attach an external GPU if you wanted, although that’s a very expensive add-on for this affordable machine. The Thunderbolt 3 ports are super handy, though. With support for up to 40 Gbps data transfer speeds, you can attach anything from an external monitor to a high-speed external storage drive.

There’s fast networking on this laptop too, thanks to its Wi-Fi 6, though you’ll need to use an adapter if you want Ethernet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Editors’ Recommendations

With Black Friday often come some of the best laptop deals of the year, and that’s certainly the case at Lenovo right now. The workstation-class ThinkPad P16 laptop is marked down a massive $5,470 today, bringing its price down from nearly $10,000 to a much more reasonable Black Friday price of $4,469. This laptop is absolutely loaded with specs, surpassing most of the best laptops and even many of the best desktop computers. Free shipping is included with this deal, which isn’t likely to last long, so click over to Lenovo now to save while you can.

Why you should buy the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 mobile workstation

Lenovo has been making quality computers for decades and currently finds itself considered among the best laptop brands. Its ThinkPad lineup is one of its most versatile, offering laptops at a range of price points for different needs. The ThinkPad P16 mobile workstation is going to sit on the upper end of those needs, as it’s packed with specs. It has an Intel i9 processor and a whopping 128GB of RAM, as well as 4TB of internal solid state storage capacity. These are the kind of specs you should be looking for if you’re trying to fit into the workflows of architectures, visual effects, and other professional-level environments that aim to push everyday laptops beyond their limits.

And while the ThinkPad P16 may seem like more than most people need, it’s something you should consider if you’re looking to go long stretches between laptop purchases. Its high-end specs make it much more future-proof, and keep it relevant with lower level computing tasks for a much longer period of time. It’s entirely capable as a super powerful everyday laptop, as it gets great battery life relative to its specs, and it has a 16-inch 4K display. It isn’t overly-sized for all of the power it has to accommodate, allowing it to travel well to both the coffee shop and by airplane. You’ll find plenty daily necessities with this workstation, as including Windows 11 Pro 64 pre-installed.

While the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 mobile workstation would regularly cost almost $10,000, you can take it home with this Black Friday deal for $4,469. Total savings come to $5,470, and free shipping is included.

Editors’ Recommendations