One year ago, Lenovo became the first company besides Valve to announce a handheld with SteamOS instead of Windows. The result was the Legion Go S with SteamOS; no Steam Deck killer due to price and battery life, but a big step forward in performance and pick-up-and-play portability.
Now, Lenovo’s doing it again — it’s bringing SteamOS to the Legion Go 2, its flagship handheld with detachable Nintendo Switch-like controllers and the most advanced screen in a handheld yet. Lenovo plans to begin selling a SteamOS version in June starting at $1,199, the company just announced at CES 2026 in Las Vegas. Specs are otherwise the same.
Yes, that is quite the price tag and quite the wait before it arrives! Lenovo already launched the Windows version of this handheld at the end of October, so it’ll already be seven-to-eight months old by the time SteamOS debuts. (With the Legion Go S, the Windows version only had a three-month head start.)
But simply switching from Windows to SteamOS can offer a notable performance boost, too, and the Legion Go 2 isn’t just premium because of an AMD chip. As of this writing, it’s the only handheld on the market with a variable-refresh-rate OLED screen to make games look amazing and one of the few that doubles as a tablet, with an excellent integrated kickstand and comfortable sculpted detachable wireless controllers for tray table play. There’s even an FPS mouse built into one of those controllers, with a snap-on puck to let it glide smoothly across a table.
I called the original Legion Go “the Swiss Army knife of handhelds,” and my time with the Legion Go 2 is much the same. I still find the newer Legion Go 2 a bit heavy and awkward with all the extra mouse buttons beneath my fingers as I grip, but there’s no denying its versatility. Speaking of which: you can already load Bazzite onto a Legion Go 2 if you want a preview of SteamOS there. Everything seems to work, including the detachable controllers and RGB lighting.
