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[CLOSED | EXCLUSIVE: Lenovo Product Team AMA] Answering all your burning questions about the Lenovo Legion Go

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  • dinjarrus's Avatar
    Level 3
    Thanks for the reply!

    I do want to clarify that your official Lenovo gaming specs page said it had VRR and it was then removed a couple hours later.

    so yes, it was official.
  • baldsealion's Avatar
    Level 6
    @SergeyBalashov Thank you for your response and now we can get over the hurdle of mis-information that is VRR.

    It is interesting that the TDP maximum in it's current state is 25w when "docked" (I believe you call this wallet mode), while other Z1E or 7840U devices offer a much higher range.

    I am hoping that this means that the "fine tuning" Lenovo is doing for the Z1E means that it will be more efficient at lower TDPs than something like the ROG Ally(as this is a direct competitor)? Most find the "sweet spot" of the Z1E on the ROG Ally is somewhere between the 17-22w range.

    While the ROG Ally has it's own concerns with thermals --- Based on what we know so far, it sounds like the Legion Go's device's design is "limited" by thermal concerns. Can you give us any comparisons of the performance we can see versus other Z1E or 7840U devices?
  • SweetTooth's Avatar
    Level 4
    Hi

    Thank you for taking the time to reply to our questions.

    Q1. When the speakers are firing upward how does it effect the sound? why not having it firing from the front like other handheld? Deck & Ally. Or an idea to change it firing downward and the flat surface reflects the sound. or having it fire upwared but having the holes pointing to the user so it directs the sound a bit. instead of firing upward into the void.

    Q2. How good is the cooling system? Is there a posibility to overclocking and downclocking?

    Q3. Is there gyroscope built in? when rotating the Legion Go will it rotate the screen also? I thought it might help with making it down firing speaker... if needed.

    Q4. Why 2242? Not the most common 2280? There is about 35 times more in the market of 2280 than 2242. I saw there is alot of space on the inside, why not make it more compact to fit a 2280

    Q5. Why not make the Joystick thumbsticks magnetic to change? why hard to change... Im afraid I will damage it when pulling it out.

    Q6. Why the right controller back buttons are located diffrently than the left controller? Its hard to reach.

    Q7. Why there is FPS mod button? why not make the button magnetic and activated automatically when connected to the plastic ring/holder.

    Q8. How hard is it (now) to change the design? are we late for that?
    I have alot of improvment points that would help the Legion Go alot with out adding any (extra) cost.
    Last edited by SweetTooth; 05-09-23 at 21:39.
  • daggah's Avatar
    Level 2
    Gyro - assuming the device has a gyro sensor. Is it in the main body of the device, or is there (also?) a sensor in the right detachable controller? And will the Lenovo software have settings to configure gyro?
  • Heropon's Avatar
    Level 9
    Hi everyone.
    Wow, lot's of questions, and good ones at that!

    I hear and see everyone, and during this week I will do my best to answer all of them (if the asnwer can be given at all), so if you do not see me answering immediately, it means that I am finding out the info.
    With that our of the way, let's address the most common ones first, and then I will go into more individual answers.

    VRR
    Let's be clear on one thing - Lenovo never claimed there was VRR. Since day one of official announce it was stated there is no VRR. Whoever delivered the VRR information from whatever source, in whichever way, was wrong, and that was not Lenovo.
    Now.
    VRR is good thing, but it is not the only thing, and it is not the main thing, especially given the panel we got on Go. Before you rise the pitchforks, let me explain.
    VRR will do you good if you have a small gap between your FPS and Hz (will use "Hz" instead of "refresh rate"), as it will basically ask panel to wait till the new image comes from the GPU, which will help save some (really minor) energy and will eliminate tearing (although cyber-athletes may disable it as they value fastest info more than they value unteared picture, but that is another story - if you are interested, you can dive into BlurBusters explanations on "G-Sync 101").
    Seems like the misconception in this thread is that when you do not have VRR, you instantly have "laggy screen" or whatever, which is far from truth. The screen shows you the latest info it got, and if there is none - it repeats the previous one. Meaning, at 144Hz rate you get 2.5 more scanouts and deliver info much faster to your eyes vs 60Hz. So the worst you can do is actually try to reduce Hz even lower to, say, 40 or 48 - the only thing you will accomplish is delay, since even if the GPU delivered the frame to the panel, the panel will wait for it's scheduled time (which is very very long time for 40-48Hz). On the opposite side we have scenario where we have, say, 48 FPS and we have 144Hz - in this case every of those 48 frames is delivered to your eyes as fast as possible, since the panel updates every several milliseconds, much faster than if you set it at 48 Hz.
    In other words - there is literally no need for VRR if you are jsut afraid that you will "lose" some frames or will see some "lag". You put the screen to 144Hz and enjoy fast and fluid frames delivery to your eyes.
    VRR may help with battery a little bit, and it may help with tearing, but comparing 48Hz VRR to 144Hz non-VRR is not really an option - at that FPS you will not see tearing, and the latency of 144Hz non-VRR will win. No need to sync the Hz and FPS - the panel will show whatever FPS you have fast, so you do not need to set it to 48Hz to see 48 FPS - you will see your 48FPS in 144Hz without losing frames.
    Another big misconception is that FPS come out from GPU at an even pace, so you can just divide Hz by FPS and get some ideal proportion. No they don't - every frame is done when it's done, and the only limiting factor that may get it in orderly fashion is if you have way more processing power than needed and then you limit the FPS at certain speed, artificially (might benefit battery life), and even then it is not a guarantee. So in this case fast-refresh panel is also a big plus - the more the better.
    That is why VRR is nota cornerstone thing for handheld gaming devices that already has 144Hz. Yes, it might be better with VRR, but the difference is marginal, and there is no tech opportunity at the moment.
    Actually, this gives a great pathway to talk about another big thing:

    Features list that might have been.
    I absolutely love the device that we did.
    My hope is that for many people it will be the ideal gaming handheld.
    Of course there are many features that can be added - everyone can name a dozen of what they would love to see. The list of features that might have been is endless. But there are two very important things that are not endless, that define product, which are:
    1) Budget. Not our budget, but user's budget. Every feature gives incremental cost. Every time someone wants a feature - it means bigger price. Our goal was to not only do best possible gaming handheld, but also make the best features set at a price point that could make many people happy. I'd say between hall effect joysticks, large battery, fast CPU and amazing screen, trackpad, programmable buttons, kickstand and detachable contollers, Legion Go is packed as good as it gets for the price point. And there is always a room for more features (at more cost), but I'd say it is a great debute device.
    2) Development/testing/producing time. Every feature and component (HW and SW) need to get planned, budgeted, produced, assembled and tested. Every engineer and system architect knows there is a time to cut, if you want to finish product by some timeframe.
    Of course everyone can dream up the device that has all the features (and presumably for free), but by the time all the testing and sourcing of new features is done, the industry has already developed something new, and there is a new set of features now to wish for. Every product will always miss something that came out literally yesterday, while the development/testing of the product takes a really long time.
    So, we are happy to deliver Legion Go with the astonishing features set it got, in the price pooint it has, and in the timeframe it is available. Despite all the limitations of the above.

    Final specs.
    Big thing to remember for now is that Legion Go is not final in the sense of being onshelf and being sold. We have an embargo of 31st of October onshelf (but no preorder embargo) for the simple reason is that we are still polishing the experience, adjusting and mending such things as CPU/GPU power limits, software, BIOS, inputs, software interface... Its all not final yet. We have assumptions and goals, and I will share them, but again - some things are not final yet.
    Some previews mentioned some things as final ones, where there are not.
    Couple of big examples:
    - Plastic material of detachable controllers.
    - Someone mentioned 48W TDP. Current assumption is actually 20W on battery and 25W in wallet mode (with 7W and 15W being two other default modes - users of Legion laptops are familiar with Fn+Q modes switching). We are working on 35W mode being available in the wallet mode, but it is not a given and not a promise - it will fully depend on the tests results (thermals and noise).
    - Inputs. Our engineers are still tuning inputs, both for own controllers, and for 3rd party ones.
    - Software. Every week I see update coming to our Legion Space, so whatever interface you may have seen in the videos - it is not final.
    - Battery life. I am not ready to share any numbers yet (SW/BIOS not final!), but I can tell right away, that even the 500-nit 165Hz QHD+ panel for a 16-inch laptop consumes near 5-6W, so you can try to downscale that to 8.8" that needs much less, and hope this gives some basic understanding that screen size and refresh rate compared to other handhelds will not affect the battery life that much. And we have a 49Whr battery, not a small one.

    Which countries it will be available in, and when?
    - This AMA is only for EMEA region, can not tell for others, but bear with me.
    - South Africa and Spain are for sure covered.
    - Which retailers? You can bet we reached every large and most of the smaller retailers. Just as a handy example - in Portugal you can already go for Go already in 6 online stores.

    Phew, big things out of the way, we can now go to individual ones:








    That's the beauty of Windows-based handheld with two USB-C 4.0
    You can use any KB/mouse/dock that you like. You want printer - you attach printer. If the device works with Windows PC via USB-C or can be used bia USB-C dock - you can use it.
    You do not need any special manual to operate it - if you worked in Windows, then you already know how to launch your games.
    You do not need any special list of games - if the game runs on Windows, it will run on Legion Go (of course with remark that there might be some old games that may have troubles of running on Windows, that depend on Windows itself).




    2. Same as in laptops, quantity does not necessarily translate to quality - those are two independent things. We made Legion Go a bit thicker so that we could place there a bigger battery and "thicker" fan, that can displace much more air per revolution compared to usual fans. Meaning, it's not "one fan", it's "one impressive big fan". Doing that quietly as well.
    3. First previews are already out, but they use early builds (both HW and SW). For the final reviews we will of course use the 99% final products (HW and SW-wise). These I hope will see the light of the day closer to the sales date (31st of Oct).



    Stores - those you mentioned, and maybe by the time of final SW comes some more. I can tell that there will be a consolidated launcher for cloud gaming services as well.
    Legion Space - for now the custom themes are not a priority, and we focus on functions over form.[/LIST]SSD is 2242, and there is no barrel for 2230 one. However, I think the free market will handle this and offer some extenders - I saw some that extend 2242 to 2280 format, so there is no reason why wouldn't there be ones that extend 2230 to 2242.
    We expect 2242 to be booming next year as a mainstream SSD format, and it is also easier to source/cool than 2230.

    The SSD itself is easy to replace, but I would not comment on if it will void the warranty in your country or not, since every country may have it's own policy in regards to that. As a rule of thumb, as far as I know, we are not putting any warranty labels on back panel and on the SSD itself, but I will double check that info. Also, for those of you who did not know this little trick - if your Lenovo device (laptop, desktop) came with preinstalled Windows, you can register on Support website, and create your own bootable USB-recovery drive for factory recovery. Usefull thing to have!
    Thank you so much for this great explanation especially on VRR.
    This is also my opinion on VRR and the fact that the high refresh rate mitigates it that's good news.

    I'm still worried about two things, I hope you can reassure me a bit on them too (2nd point is something not asked before here) :
    1) Well I already asked, that's about screen's durability. One thing is sure, I won't place a protector on the screen. Anyway it's surely much less important than on a smartphone, we use the touch screen much less often and we won't put the device in our pocket. I still hope it's not too vulnerable to scratches. If you can have more info on this part as you said, that would be great
    2) That's a point we didn't mention : speakers. I've seen that they are 2W each but that doesn't translate to great sound quality. I'm more worried about soundstage and spatialization than sound quality itself. Especially because speakers are not front-facing. On Asus console the speakers sounds really wide making an impressively big soundstage. Plus Dolby Atmos is not only marketing, I really feel sometimes that the sound is coming from behind me for example. Can you tell more about how speakers sounds on the Legion Go ? And how good it is for soundstage and spatialization ?

    Edit : ahah another question about speakers 9 minutes before :D
  • Zdenko's Avatar
    Level 3
    how about eGPUs? the included usb-c can support them, can you confirm there will be sw support to enable that? any further info you can share is great, like what types, will it need to be some Lenovo proprietary model or any eGPU that can be plugged in?
    thx!

    - - - Updated - - -

    oh, one more, sorry.

    integer scaling. ppl hypothesize the 1600p was chosen as it is 2x 800p and can thus be cleanly used with integer scaling and thus driving battery life up, performance up while allowing for good picture quality. most new games cant be played at 1600p144hz at respectable settings (if at all) on a handheld, so this is potentially very useful feature if availsble

    will there be native feature to make use of the integer scaling or will it depend on per game implementation by the game devs?
  • IslandTurtle's Avatar
    Level 3
    @SergeyBalashov Thanks for the response. Hopefully if the handheld sells well the second one can have more features like pen support and the likes. I’ll probably still buy it, and just use my XP pen tablet.
  • baldsealion's Avatar
    Level 6
    @Zdenko Integer Scaling is a function of AMD's Adrenalin software so it should work across the board. 800p is 1/4 of the resolution of 1600p, which is what this needs to accomplish Integer Scaling.

    There are also third-party apps like Lossless Scaling that can do Integer Scaling as well.
  • toastybob42's Avatar
    Level 1
    Hi, will the split detachable controllers be available for purchase separately? I'd like to use them with my laptop.
  • Anomander's Avatar
    Level 3
    Hi,

    I have a few questions regarding the display:

    Q1) We've seen your competitors offer a some form of anti-reflective (AR) coating on their handhelds - etched glass on the Steam Deck and Gorilla Glass DXC on the ROG Ally - will the Legion Go have some form of AR coating on the display? What about on the "ultrathin screen protector glass"?

    Q2) What white point and EOTF is the Legion Go display calibrated to?

    Q3) Any options in Legion Space app to easily clamp color gamut?