The 1 TB version of the handheld gaming PC I fell in love with is now $200 off for Black Friday

(Image credit: Lenovo)

The Lenovo Legion Go will always have a special place in my ever-bitter heart. It's the first handheld gaming PC I got my grubby mitts on, and to be honest, I don't really want to get my mitts on another. Not until a handheld much more powerful and efficient comes out, that is, because I love pretty much everything about the Legion Go.

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What is it I love so much about the Legion Go? Well, three main things, all of which kind of converge into a whole package:

Big screen
Kick stand
Detachable controllers

What I've found is that all these things combine into something that feels like more than just a handheld to me. Primarily, these features have made it so that I'm not only using the handheld, well, in my hands (which is probably a good thing, given it's admittedly not the lightest model on the market).

A big screen can be seen from a little further away, a kick stand makes the handheld easy to stand up facing me whether that's on my desk or even on my bed, and detachable controllers obviously make the process loads easier. The Legion Go also has two USB-C ports, so plugging in a third-party controller is easy (provided you have a USB-C controller or an adapter).

All this has meant I spend a lot of time without the controller in my actual hands—although plenty of time with it there, too. Because of this, one word I'd use to describe the Legion Go is versatile. It feels like it can be put to a lot of different portable gaming use cases in different locations. I've especially enjoyed hooking it up to the AverMedia X'tra Go GC515 capture dock and my TV, essentially using as a console like the Nintendo Switch thanks to its detachable controllers.

It's probably also important to mention that the Legion Go's screen resolution is overkill. I don't think I've maxed out its resolution once, because its processor can't churn out decent enough frame rates at such a high res. But that's okay, because the lower 1920 x 1200 setting is plenty sharp. And, of course, less taxing indie games will do fine at the higher res.

Its internals aren't lacklustre for a handheld, either. The Legion Go features the same Z1 Extreme processor as the Asus ROG Ally and Asus ROG Ally X, which is plenty for 1080p gaming in most modern games at medium settings and the likes.

That the 1 TB version is now discounted to $550 is great not just because of all this versatility, but also because 1 TB capacity is ideal for a handheld. Many come with a mere 512 GB storage, and while that's not as bad as it would be on a gaming PC because most handheld-friendly games have smaller installation sizes, it's still not ideal.

If you do think 512 GB is fine, though, you can pick that up for $500 at Newegg or Amazon.

But if I didn't have one in my hands already, for a $200 discount I'd definitely be snapping up a 1 TB version of the Lenovo Legion Go.

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Jacob got his hands on a gaming PC for the first time when he was about 12 years old. He swiftly realised the local PC repair store had ripped him off with his build and vowed never to let another soul build his rig again. With this vow, Jacob the hardware junkie was born. Since then, Jacob's led a double-life as part-hardware geek, part-philosophy nerd, first working as a Hardware Writer for PCGamesN in 2020, then working towards a PhD in Philosophy for a few years while freelancing on the side for sites such as TechRadar, Pocket-lint, and yours truly, PC Gamer. Eventually, he gave up the ruthless mercenary life to join the world's #1 PC Gaming site full-time. It's definitely not an ego thing, he assures us.