It looks like the first third-party Steam OS handheld is about to hit the market, at least if this new Lenovo Legion Go S leak is accurate. Images purportedly showing pictures of this so-far unannounced handheld gaming PC seem to show a dedicated Steam button, suggesting that it will launch with SteamOS on board.
Third-party SteamOS support has the potential to completely change the best handheld gaming PC market, offering seamless access to hundreds of Steam Deck games. If Lenovo is the first third-party manufacturer to launch a SteamOS handheld, it will be hoping this choice will help it to dominate against some of its Windows-based rivals.
This particular leak originates from X (formerly Twitter) after being initially spotted by The Verge. Evan Blass, a tech journalist and a notorious mobile hardware leaker, shared the images of the Lenovo Legion Go S in a now-hidden post on X that’s been shared on The Verge.
Looking a lot like an earlier Legion Go S image leak from a few weeks ago, these new images show off a Steam button label, placed next to one of the buttons on the left-hand side – a label that was missing from the white colorway leak. This follows a document, found earlier this month, which suggested SteamOS third-party support was coming to multiple handhelds, using the “Powered by SteamOS” label to market them.
If this is true, it’s a smart move by Lenovo to work with Valve and gain access to SteamOS. Earlier Lenovo Legion Go S reports suggest that this new budget option will launch with an AMD Radeon 680M GPU, which is based on the same RDNA 2 architecture as the Steam Deck GPU, but with more stream processors, theoretically making it a good hardware match for existing compatibility. Launching the Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS would also remove the need for a Windows license, lowering the potential cost.
While we wait for more details about this rumored new handheld, you can check out our original Lenovo Legion Go review to see how the company’s first attempt at a handheld performed. You can also check out our Legion Go 2 guide for the latest information on the Legion Go S’ rumored bigger and more powerful sibling.