For only $20 more than a Nintendo Switch 2, you can get a more powerful gaming handheld with detachable controllers, and a bigger screen—that's also a PC

Like many folks, I've been training my beady little eyes on many a storefront, attempting to sniff out a good deal on the hottest handheld: The Lenovo Legion Go…. What did you think I was going to say? The Nintendo Switch 2? Oh, please—the Lenovo Legion Go has detachable controllers and it's got more games by simple virtue of the fact it's also a handheld gaming PC. Besides all of that, my Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order has already arrived.

But to continue with the comparison, a brand new worse PC with a few exclusive games." As for the Legion Go, being an older handheld means stock remains readily available, and its age also means it's currently enjoying a steep discount at only $520 from Amazon.

This Amazon deal applies to the 512 GB model of the Legion Go, which is Baldur's Gate 3—not to mention whatever indies you've been meaning to get to in your Steam library—with detachable controllers on a still pretty nice looking screen. And trust me, for some things in Baldur's Gate 3, you're certainly going to appreciate playing on a small handheld screen that you can portably position away from prying eyes rather than a honking great big monitor.

Bear-riding aside, the detachable controllers make this a comfortable device to game on, despite its obvious heft. As Jacob writes in his Lenovo Legion Go review, "The small stand built into the rear of the Go's chassis unfolds to keep it upright on a desk. It's adjustable, too. Unclip the controllers and you can sink back into your seat and genuinely relax while playing. This is absolutely the best way to play games like Baldur's Gate on Go—you can sink a lot of hours into either game in a single session and this means you don't have to clutch onto a hot and heavy device with sweaty palms for the duration."

One surprising drawback of the Lenovo Legion Go is that the swish screen is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the positive side, yes, you're getting an 8.8-inch screen—which is still bigger than the Switch 2. It's very snazzy, and for that reason it remains our top pick in the 'best big screen' in our Lenovo Legion Go S, as the newer one actually has a smaller screen (plus a less powerful processor). The sheer size of the Legion Go's touch screen IPS helps gaming at a distance with the controllers detached.

The big screen also comes with a big resolution, but don't expect to be maxing out games at a high resolution without paying a price in frames. The RDNA 3 GPU featuring 12 compute units (CUs) in the Legion Go isn't really capable of playing the biggest releases at a 2560 x 1600 resolution. One of the only games our Jacob gave the full res whack was monochrome indie favourite World of Horror, which says it all really. Games still look great at 1980x1200, though, so it's not a massive loss, just something to bear in mind—and of course there's the odd older game that might run well at max res.

If we're just comparing the Switch 2 and the Lenovo Legion Go, I still can't let Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's claim that Nintendo's new console possesses "the most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device" scooch by unchallenged. To be clear, the Switch 2 contains an Nvidia ARM chip, and the Lenovo Go features AMD's RDNA handy-work, so the comparison is a little apples-to-oranges to begin with.

The hardware team also hasn't gotten their wee little mitts on the Switch 2 for testing just yet, so we can't say definitively which handheld is more powerful—though we do expect it to still be the Lenovo Legion Go. Setting aside that narrow comparison to 'um, actually' the CEO of Nvidia just a wee bit more, our best gaming laptop guide is also right there. Anyway, all of that said, $520 for a powerful gaming handheld that's readily available and can bring your PC faves right to your sweaty palms is certainly not a bad deal.