from Hacker News

Lenovo Officially Announces the Legion Go S Handheld with SteamOS

by leidenfrost on 1/7/25, 5:46 PM with 88 comments

  • by MoreMoore on 1/7/25, 6:37 PM

    Why, just why won't any of the competitors make one of these handhelds with at least the same amount and types of input options as the Steam Deck. I'd love a higher performance handheld but none of them have two trackpads, gyro input and four back buttons, so I'm stuck with the Deck.

  • by Arnavion on 1/7/25, 6:19 PM

    Submitted link is to the article's discussion thread. Article link is https://www.phoronix.com/news/Lenovo-Legion-Go-SteamOS

    And original Lenovo press link is https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-legi...

  • by flaminHotSpeedo on 1/7/25, 6:29 PM

    I'm curious to see how 3rd parties with SteamOS handhelds behave.

    Both in the context of the handhelds themselves (do they meet the steam deck's high bar for reliability and longevity) as well as how the companies handle things like open source contributions or vetting games.

    It takes more than just the OS to replicate the steam deck's success (even though SteamOS itself is very well executed)

  • by jeppester on 1/7/25, 6:46 PM

    It's interesting how the Steam OS option is positioned as the cheap choice for the casual gamer.

    On the surface level it looks it bit like the half-assed Linux efforts for the Steam Machines and EEE PCs.

    This time the software - if it works as well as on the Steam Deck - is arguably more user friendly than Windows.

    So it would have been nice for linux to also be a "premium" option.

    On the other hand the Go S with Steam OS has a real chance to compare well against its more expensive Windows version.

  • by golergka on 1/7/25, 6:58 PM

    I hope steam machines make a comeback. Steamdeck is the best gaming platform I've ever owned, and I'd easily pay up to $2k for a box that I can just put under my 4k TV and have all my 1000+ steam games there without ever having to see the windows logo.

  • by ndriscoll on 1/7/25, 6:34 PM

    It's starting to occur to me that even without having any time or inclination for video games these days, one of these handheld Linux gaming computers seems to be what I actually want out of an Android phone, and I'm really starting to despise the whole phone ecosystem. Does one of these exist with passable front/rear cameras for video calling/spur of the moment shots?

    I never even use my phone as a phone. I certainly don't make calls while I'm out and about. The thing pointlessly enables spying on me when I don't even want it. But a pocket computer with wifi, enough storage for my entire music collection + wikipedia + maps, and ability to take phone-quality pictures? Running an actual Linux distribution so I don't run into stupid issues like how Android doesn't let you use NFS so they can push you into their cloud services? Awesome.

  • by stavros on 1/7/25, 6:28 PM

    Is SteamOS officially licenced? Does that mean I can expect stuff to work just as well as on the Deck? With the Deck, I don't care what OS games were built for, everything just works.

  • by rcarmo on 1/8/25, 8:18 AM

    In between SteamOS licensing and Bazzite, I think this is finally the year of Linux on my lap.

    Too bad they couldn’t get a more up to date chipset in, but I suppose there will be a bunch of little tweaks to power management, compositing, etc.

  • by drewchew on 1/7/25, 6:31 PM

    I wonder how long til we can run steamOS via emulation on an iPhone...