Hurry! The Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS is $50 off right now — perfect timing to ditch Windows gaming handhelds

Buying the best gaming handheld for you is becoming pretty costly for peak performance across your PC game library. As you head closer to Prime Day, you start to see some savings crop up, but to see the latest and greatest get a price cut even got me blindsided!

Right now, the Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS is $50 off at Best Buy, which drops the price of the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go model to just $549 and the more powerful Z1 Extreme to $779.

Given these have just come out, this is one of the most surprising deals I’ve seen.

Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS (Ryzen Z2 Go): was $599 now $549 at Best Buy

This is the option for the indie gamers. The Ryzen Z2 Go is perfect for less demanding titles, and its lower power demands mean you’re getting a better battery life too. Just bear in mind if you do want AAA gaming too, you’ll have to go one step up.

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Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS (Ryzen Z1 Extreme): was $829 now $779 at Best Buy

Based on my experience with Z1 Extreme and SteamOS (more on that later), you’re getting a ton of horsepower for even the most demanding AAA games to run at a smooth 50-60 FPS. This is the versatile beast for the diverse gaming library of top tier games and indie darlings alike.

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Why the Legion Go S?

As Tony found out in his Lenovo Legion Go S review, this is a fantastic gaming handheld with a vibrant display and impressive gaming performance. The amount of RAM is balanced just right for each — with the Z2 Go model getting 16GB and the Z1 Extreme maxing out at 32GB for more demanding titles.

But what’s always most impressive is the ergonomics, which Lenovo has nailed here. The shape of the system fits perfectly into your hands, the joysticks have a nice smooth movement to them and all the buttons have a great tactile feel to them for playing.

If you were looking at the aging Steam Deck and wanted more oomph, this is the one to get. But the Windows versions of these handhelds are also $50 off right now too, which leads to another question…

Why SteamOS is better than Windows?

Well, it comes down to three things in my past year of testing — when I installed SteamOS on my Asus ROG Ally X (near-identical spec to the Z1 Extreme Go S):

• Ease of use: Valve has done the impossible — making your PC gaming library as easy to access as a games console would be. The depth of customization is made all the more accessible with a gorgeously simple UI that is a whole lot more touch friendly than Windows 11 is.
• Better performance: Stripping all the background processes of Windows means you can see a roughly 20-30% performance bump in the same games on SteamOS.
• Better battery life: That same process also gives you extra stamina too. In my testing, I was able to get up to an additional 40 minutes of juice running SteamOS over Windows.

Of course, there are limitations to SteamOS — namely that it’s just Steam. But since it’s Linux-based, you can figure out workarounds to get Epic Games and the like on there too. If you want everything, Windows is the way to go, but I think you’re giving up way too much for that.

Not only is the SteamOS Go S nicer to use, faster and lasts longer, but it’s cheaper too. That Z1 Extreme configuration with Windows is $849 after a $50 discount. So why waste your money? Until we see what Microsoft is able to do with the ROG Xbox Ally, this is your best bet.