It was bound to happen at some point. The moment Valve announced that it would bring its SteamOS software to other handhelds, we were bound to have a Steam Deck that's better than the Steam Deck, and Lenovo's the first one out of the gate with a device. The Legion Go S 8 isn't just the first third-party handheld with SteamOS installed. It's the Steam Deck upgrade that Valve doesn't want to make.

I've personalized my Steam Deck, configured my Decky Loader plugins, and even upgraded the SSD. But every time I reach for it, the Legion Go S 8 is staring back at me. I don't want to admit that Lenovo made a better handheld, but that's the only conclusion I can come to after a few weeks with the Legion Go S 8.

The best handheld controls I've ever used

And I've used them all

The Legion Go S 8 feels incredible. That's an aspect of the device that wasn't praised nearly enough when Lenovo introduced it earlier this year. Instead of just launching the SteamOS version directly, Lenovo first launched the Legion Go S 8 with Windows. Not only was the device criticized for using Windows, it also received pushback from the low performance of the Ryzen Z2 Go chip. As I uncovered testing the original Legion Go S 8 against the SteamOS version, Windows had more to do with the performance hit than the chip itself.

But when you take the software experience out of it, the bones of the Legion Go S 8 are the best I've used. Unlike the ROG Ally, the face buttons are slightly recessed, so they provide more of a tactile response. Unlike the Steam Deck, the D-pad has a circular bowed design that makes quarter turns much easier in fighting games. But the real winners on the Legion Go S 8 are the triggers. Not only does Lenovo include a slider for a hair-trigger setting, similar to a lot of third-party controllers, the hair-trigger setting uses micro-switches.

Micro-switches are fantastic in a controller for both the face buttons and the triggers. I loved them so much on my GameSir Cyclone 2 that I took apart my Steam Deck to add clicky buttons. With the Legion Go S 8, they're just built-in. Granted, you only get the micro-switches on the triggers, but that's probably a good decision. As much as I like clicky face buttons, they aren't for everyone. Clicky triggers, though? That's a different story.

Lenovo doesn't sacrifice anything for these upgrades, either. You're still getting hall effect joysticks, which are available on a ton of other handhelds. And Lenovo managed to squeeze in a tiny trackpad, calling back to the original Lenovo Legion Go. It's not the easiest thing to use, but it doesn't get in the way, and it's certainly better than controlling a mouse cursor with the joysticks.

A bigger handheld, and a bigger screen

It feels great in the hands, and that screen will blow you away

I've been an advocate for the Steam Deck's display for a while. It certainly helps that the Steam Deck OLED has a fantastic-looking screen, but I was never sold on the idea of sizing up the resolution and refresh rate. A 800p screen at 60Hz (or 90Hz for the OLED model) made sense to me for a handheld. It's a high enough resolution that games look great, it's less demanding on the hardware, and the bar for a handheld gaming experience is maintaining 60 frames per second (fps), not 120 fps to saturate the refresh rate on other handhelds.

I still stand by that sentiment, but man, the Legion Go S 8 makes it tough to make that argument. The 1080p 120Hz display looks amazing, and even moreso if you can load up an older game that the Ryzen Z2 Go can run at a full 120 fps. A lower resolution display still makes the most sense for a handheld, but the Legion Go S 8 makes an argument for a higher resolution.

And that's because it's big. You're getting an 8-inch screen, while handhelds like the ROG Ally X use a 7-inch screen. It sounds like a small difference, but it provides a vastly different experience in practice. Even just an extra diagonal inch on a handheld makes the display of the Legion Go S feel massive and immersive. For perfect contrast and vibrant colors, the Steam Deck OLED still wins the day. But when I sit down and pick up a handheld to play, the Legion Go S provides a better experience, full stop.

More power, delivered faster

Valve is a software company, not a hardware company

The Ryzen Z2 Go is more capable than the Steam Deck's APU. It's about on-par with the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, but it took the lightweight SteamOS to expose that fact. More important than the Legion Go S and the Steam Deck, however, is how hardware brands will continue to push performance forward, and at a much faster pace than Valve.

Valve makes the lion's share of its money from Steam, and SteamOS is an extension of that. By enabling other brands to use SteamOS, Valve is competing with itself — assuming it's in the business of selling Steam Decks. But Valve isn't in the business of selling Steam Decks. It's in the business of selling games, and the Steam Deck helps that business as much as SteamOS does. Valve has made it clear that it won't be updating the Steam Deck annually, and it won't update the handheld at all if it doesn't feel there's a significant performance improvement available. Hardware brands like Lenovo will continue to push out new handhelds, though.

The Legion Go S shows that dynamic now, and it will only continue. Even when we get a Steam Deck 2, a hardware brand like Asus, Lenovo, or MSI will probably be no more than six months to a year behind with a new handheld packing more capable hardware. And what a difference that hardware can make. With the Legion Go S, I'm able to get close to 60 fps at 1080p in demanding games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Guardians of the Galaxy, and I can easily climb into the triple digits by bumping down to 720p. The Steam Deck OLED provides a great gaming experience, but it's immediately clear that the Legion Go S is the more powerful handheld.