With the reveal of the AMD Ryzen Z2 processor back at CES 2025, AMD promised a revolution in PC gaming handhelds, but this market is nothing if not confusing. Take Lenovo's buzzy Legion Go line, which has used a host of AMD Ryzen Z-family CPUs and two possible operating systems: Windows 11 and SteamOS. The Legion Go S, a stripped-down Go released in 2024, saw the first use of Ryzen Z2, AMD's most recent Ryzen chip family for handheld gaming, but the Z2 Go-based model we tested was weighed down by Windows 11. SteamOS worked better paired with that Z2 Go chip, but ultimately, we liked SteamOS linked up with the first-gen Z1 Extreme best of all. (We tested SteamOS versions of the Legion Go S with both CPU variants.)

That brings us to Lenovo's most recent stab at the field, the Legion Go 2. Lenovo's new flagship handheld, it brings back the detachable controllers of the original Legion Go. Starting at $1,099 (and $1,349 in our test model), the spendy Go 2 is a Windows 11 handheld with an 8.8-inch, 1200p OLED display and AMD's new tip-top Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU. That chip boosts performance noticeably, but it doesn't make for the sea-change moment we hoped for. Still, the Legion Go 2 is a capable gaming handheld and far more portable than any budget gaming laptop. The Asus ROG Ally X remains our Editors' Choice award winner for Windows gaming handhelds.

Design, Display, and Configurations: Perfecting the PC Handheld

Lenovo's Legion sequel takes design cues from the slimmer Lenovo Legion Go S mentioned above. The controllers' corners feel less sharp than on the original Lenovo Legion Go, fitting more comfortably in my hand. The Legion Go 2 is still the largest in its category, and while it's still comfortable to use, the heft is definitely noticeable. It weighs slightly more than its predecessor, coming in at 2.03 pounds. It’s about the same size all around, measuring 1.66 by 11.6 by 5.4 inches (HWD).

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

With a large 8.8-inch OLED display, the console makes excellent use of its size to maximize screen space. Compared with the Nintendo Switch OLED and Steam Deck OLED, its panel looks incredible. The display supports HDR with a max HDR brightness of 1,100 nits and support for 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Like the Legion Go S, the Legion Go 2 settles at 1,920 by 1,200 pixels instead of the Original Go’s far-out 1600p resolution. The display is also a multitouch touch screen with a 144Hz variable refresh rate.

That screen is the same for both Legion Go 2 models. Our review unit is the premium option, packed with an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and 1TB of internal SSD storage that’s user-upgradable for $1,349. The starting configuration kicks down the CPU and memory but maintains 1TB of storage, opting for a Ryzen Z2 with 16GB of RAM for $1,099.

The machine is speedy, launching in mere seconds after powering on, and the battery-life potential looks decent, thanks to a 74Wh battery. (More about that in our testing section.) A full-fat version of Windows 11 is onboard, so players can use the Legion Go 2 the same way they would as if they were playing (or, ahem, working) on a laptop.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Lenovo's console features a similar fan system to the previous models. Cool air draws in through the back and pumps out through the top vents. The system can handle up to 35 watts of power from the processor. The machine can get noticeably loud in performance-focused modes, especially when plugged into power. Be sure not to block the vents either, like I did. I left the console lying on its back on a hard, flat surface while charging, and I returned to a system that felt like it would overheat if I didn't do something quickly. Luckily, it was still working after I set it upright and let it cool down for a few minutes.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Controllers, Audio, and Interface: Quality All Around

The Legion Go 2 once again uses Hall effect joysticks. These help slow down the wear and tear that degrades most traditional joysticks over time. (Hall effect versions use magnets and sensors instead of physical contact to read joystick input, reducing friction.) However, their most significant benefit is eliminating stick drift, which still haunts other premium gaming handhelds like the Nintendo Switch 2. The buttons are responsive, with just enough give on every press. The Go 2 also uses the same concave eight-directional pad as the Go S.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The controllers are still detachable in the same way as they were before. With a small button on the controller's backside, you can tug the controller off the tablet, Nintendo Switch-style. Admittedly, undocking the controllers is still harder than it should be, but once you figure it out, the movement becomes second nature. If you’re upgrading from the original Legion Go, you can also use those same controllers on the Go 2. 

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Also returning: FPS (first-person shooter) mode. Using the included controller base, you can toggle on an FPS mode and transform the right-handed controller into a vertical joystick-like mouse. It works pretty much exactly as it did the first time around, and does make for a fun way to play shooters, even if it’s not my preferred way to play.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

At the top of the machine, you’ll find two volume buttons, two 2-watt stereo speakers, a USB-C port, and the machine’s power button. Below is a 3.5mm jack, a MicroSD card slot, and another USB-C connection. Both USB ports are USB4, which supports 40Gbps data transfer, can act as a DisplayPort 1.4 video output, and can charge the Legion Go 2. What I don’t like, however, is the headphone jack's placement, which makes it totally inaccessible if you’re playing in tabletop mode. This feels like a major oversight; the headphone jack was at the top of the original Legion Go.

The Lenovo Legion Go 2 uses Legion Space, an app that aggregates your downloaded games and game launchers and manages your device settings. It opens automatically at startup, but the app also has a shortcut button just above the left thumbstick. Legion Space has come a long way and decently emulates a console experience.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Lenovo Space is far improved from its less-than-compelling beginnings. (The original iteration was unsightly and clunky to navigate; I found myself rushing to close it whenever it opened at startup.) But Legion Space still doesn’t come close to SteamOS. I do, at least, like how quick and easy it is to use Legion Space to change refresh rates and screen resolution to accommodate more demanding titles.

One of the upcoming additions to the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X is the introduction of the Xbox Full Screen experience (accessible by Windows Insiders via backdoor workarounds), which emulates the Xbox console experience in handheld mode. This will eventually come to the Legion Go 2, sometime in early 2026, but it will launch first on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X when the systems release.

Components: The AMD Ryzen Z2 Difference

As mentioned up top, AMD's Ryzen Z2 series is the latest iteration of its mobile PC-gaming processors. The outgoing AMD Ryzen Z1 powered just about every popular PC gaming handheld, including the Lenovo Legion Go, the Asus ROG Ally, and the Asus ROG Ally X. We got a glimpse of the Z2 Go in the Lenovo Go S, but it was an entry-level processor and the least potent chip in this new generation, with only four cores and eight threads.

The most significant difference is that the Ryzen Z2 Extreme in our Go 2 test model uses AMD's RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, an upgrade from the previous Z1 Extreme's RDNA 3. The Z2 Extreme leverages AMD’s “Zen 5” technologies on the CPU side and delivers 16 RDNA 3.5 graphics cores for GPU acceleration. Among the many advances, it employs better AI technologies to boost algorithmic performance and the latest in ray-tracing accelerators.

(Credit: AMD)

This chip is slightly different from the Z2 and Z2 Extreme AI variants set to power the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X. While Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme has a similar configuration to the non-AI variant, including its eight-core/16-thread CPU, 24MB of cache, and 16 RDNA 3.5 graphics cores, the new Z2 processor will include a dedicated NPU rated for up to 50 TOPS of AI compute power and support for Microsoft’s Copilot+ features.

Performance Testing: Our First Taste of the AMD Z2 Extreme

I've split our performance testing into two parts: productivity/content creation/synthetic graphics tests as one set (and compared against one group of systems), and gaming benchmarks as another, charted versus a host of recent PC gaming handhelds. I've also outlined some additional anecdotal game testing I did outside the bounds of our formal tests.

The first set focuses on a few gaming handhelds, but for some context, it includes a like-priced, new gaming laptop in the MSI Katana 15 HX ($999 as tested). The more directly comparable gaming handhelds include the Ryzen Z2 Go/Windows version of the Lenovo Go S ($599 as tested), the Asus ROG Ally X ($799.99 as tested), and the MSI Claw 8 AI+ ($899.99 as tested). Let's get into those numbers first.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

Our primary overall productivity benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, tests a system in apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Also, its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput. Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.

In these comparisons, the Legion Go 2 trounced the handheld machines in PCMark 10, but it didn't come out on top in CPU-centric tests like Cinebench and HandBrake. The additional cores and threads helped it efficiently outperform the base-level Z2 Go, but the Z1 Extreme in the Ally handheld was not too shabby, considering its last-generation position. You can expect to get decent everyday work done using this machine, say with a display dock and accessories.

Synthetic Graphics Tests

We challenge each reviewed system’s graphics with a quintet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life and Wild Life Extreme use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. Steel Nomad's regular and Light subtests focus on APIs more commonly used for game development to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, emphasizes ray-tracing performance. (Some systems here could not run all five of these tests, so results for Wild Life Extreme and Steel Nomad have been omitted from the charts below.)

Thanks to its discrete GPU, the MSI Katana 15 HX laptop cleared the field in our graphics benchmarks, as you would expect. Yes, it may be an unfair comparison on its face, but remember that the 15.6-inch laptop starts at $999, even less than the Legion Go 2. Considering the value proposition alone, the laptop is a clear winner.

Compared with the other handhelds on the list, the Z2 Extreme outpaced the other Z-series handhelds on two of the three tests shown. However, the Intel-powered Claw 8 AI+ challenged the Legion Go 2, outright beating it in the 3DMark Wild Life test by several thousand points. While a potent performer, the Legion Go 2 didn't dominate outright on the synthetic tests.

Formal AAA Gaming Tests

Moving on to our real-world gaming benchmarks, we'll introduce here a fleet of Lenovo Go S models and the Steam Deck OLED to the comparison set, replacing the prior systems. For our formal benchmarking, we dropped our usual Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and F1 2024 benchmarks and employed benchmark tools from Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Guardians of the Galaxy to help evaluate performance across all the current Legion Go handhelds, as well as Valve's Steam Deck.

Each console was tested in the device's performance mode while plugged directly into power, with the only difference being the resolution. (The Steam Deck screen is 800p, while the Legion Go S models and Legion Go 2 are 1200p.) Finally, we take a look at some popular titles for some anecdotal testing. All results are measured in frames per second, or fps.

First up is Cyberpunk 2077. Using the Steam Deck graphics preset, as shown in the chart below, the Legion Go 2 tied the average we observed on Legion Go S (Z1 Extreme, SteamOS). That easily trumped the Z2 Go models with or without Windows and comfortably cruised past the Steam Deck.

I was surprised that Legion Go 2’s results were so similar to the Z1 Extreme with SteamOS, though. As I tested the Ultra and Ray-Tracing benchmarks, they also proved the same. It wasn’t the best start to benchmarks. Cyberpunk is incredibly CPU- and GPU-intensive, and the Z2 Extreme has the same threads and cores as the Z1 Extreme. Still, if you consider that the Legion Go 2 is carrying the load of Windows 11 and still matching performance with a machine unburdened by Windows, the machine’s raw power is more evident.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

This situation is also true of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The final installment in the rebooted Tomb Raider series resolved an average of 55fps on low presets, slightly below the Legion Go S (Z1 Extreme, SteamOS) result of 60fps on average.

Off to a somewhat disappointing start, but we begin to see a different picture painted when we switch to Guardians of the Galaxy. Here’s where we see the Go 2 flex a little muscle, benchmarking an average of 99fps, well above the Go S (Z1 Extreme, SteamOS). It's possible that the first two games are CPU-bound at these settings on the Z1 Extreme and Z2 Extreme, while Guardians of the Galaxy lets the Z2 Extreme flex its GPU silicon a bit more. But we'd have to see a lot more games compared between these two handhelds to nail down any such trend.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

I also noted in my review of the Legion Go S (Z2 Go, SteamOS) that it seems Windows takes quite a big chunk out of the handheld’s performance. I’d love to see the Z2 Extreme paired with a lighter operating system like the SteamOS, and perhaps that’s something in the cards for Lenovo. It is a win for those who appreciate the operating system’s inclusion, considering we've seen similar and at times better performance than the Z1 Extreme with SteamOS before removing Windows 11.

Real-World Game Tests

After some formal benchmarking, we move on to anecdotal testing, where I run various games to give a realistic idea of the type of performance you can expect from this console. The games on my list include popular releases like Baldur’s Gate III, Coral Island, Hades II, Gears of War: Reloaded, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, and Resident Evil 4 (2023)—and the results are impressive. To measure frame rates, I used the Frame Rate Monitor accessible in the Legion Go 2’s menu.

The newest game in my list of games is Hades II, and I’m happy to report that it runs flawlessly on the Go 2 on high settings and frame rates, and the rich colors and inky blacks pop well against the machine’s OLED screen. It’s responsive and fluid, and a game that’s a perfect fit for a handheld. That goes for Coral Island as well. The cozy farming simulator’s color visuals looked excellent, without a single performance hitch. 

But those two games are relatively simple compared with the next three. Baldur’s Gate III was 2023’s best RPG, and it remains one of the most popular games on Steam. It’s another game ideal for handheld, and it’s best on the Go 2. On high settings with AMD's upscaling and frame-generating FSR 2.2 set to Performance, the console reached 60fps and above while running around the Druid Grove, one of the game's early locations. It looks and feels pleasant to play, and while I can’t guarantee performance stays the same across your playthrough, I would say this is the best the game has looked across the PC handhelds I’ve tested.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

For Resident Evil 4, I set FSR to Performance with settings on high and played a round of Mercenaries, the game’s high score-based arcade mode. And like Baldur’s Gate, Resident Evil 4 has never looked or played better on a handheld. With average frame rates that fluctuated between the mid-50s to as high as mid-70s, the game took full advantage of the variable refresh rate and felt smooth as butter without much compromise. Like Baldur’s Gate III, this was the best I’ve seen the game perform on a PC handheld.

Gears of War: Reloaded, a remaster of the 2015 remake of Gears of War, also performed incredibly well with FSR 3.1 enabled and resolution scaling on Quality. The in-game benchmark reported an average of 70fps, and in gameplay, I observed between 60fps and 70fps as I played through the first two chapters.

You'll find limits to what you can expect from PC handhelds, however, even the Legion Go 2. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is an intensely demanding Unreal Engine 5 title. Still, I got it running at a playable state with some tweaks. I dropped the resolution to 1,200 by 800, set presets to Medium, and switched FSR to Performance. I played the opening section and fluctuated between 30fps and 40fps. The picture quality was rough, but it was what I would consider playable, even if it’s significantly scaled back.

While this is an impressive showing, I can't help but wonder how far the Z2 Extreme can go without the weight of Windows anchoring it. Ignoring that, the Legion Go 2 is arguably the most potent PC gaming handheld.

Battery Life Testing

The Legion Go 2 utilizes a 74Whr battery, significantly larger than the Lenovo Legion Go S's 55.5Whr battery and the Steam Deck OLED’s 50Whr juice pack. Lenovo doesn’t list an estimated per-charge battery endurance, but devices like these usually last for approximately three to 12 hours on a charge, depending on the use case.

For all-out play, battery life depends on the game you’re playing. A graphically intensive game will likely draw more power than something simple. We set the system to 50% brightness and 100% volume, deactivated all the Dim Display and Sleep options, and turned the device on Airplane mode. We set each system's power profile to Performance. Using Cyberpunk’s Steam Deck preset, I left the game idle. The streets of Night City shut down after about 2 hours and 11 minutes.

In addition, we test each system's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We ensure the battery is fully charged, with Wi-Fi and additional RGB backlighting turned off before the test. As with the Lenovo Go, I chose the quiet thermal mode (8W) and Balanced OS power mode preset for my testing. With that in mind, the Legion Go 2 tapped out at 11 hours and 4 minutes. So we can safely say you’re looking at about two to 11 hours of use before finding a charger.