Lenovo Legion Go Next-Gen Gaming Handhelds Break Cover With Ryzen Z2 Firepower
If anyone needs further proof that the PC gaming handheld market is thriving, just look at the wave of iterative and generational upgrades that have either already been released (like the Steam Deck OLED and ASUS ROG Ally X) or are in the pipeline. Pertaining to the latter, Lenovo has taken to the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) to register no less than three upcoming Legion Go refreshes.
This is exciting for several reasons, one of which is that Lenovo is a major OEM. Valve played a crucial role in proving a market exists for PC gaming handhelds, and Lenovo is one of many high-profile companies that jumped into the fray—in our Lenovo Legion Go review, we highlighted some unique advantages and, at the time, called it the "best Windows-based handheld we've tried out yet."
Check out the review if you haven't already done so, but to quickly recap the specs, the Legion Go rocks an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC, 16GB of LPDDR2-7200 RAM, and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid state drive, all tucked under an 8.8-inch display with a 2560x1440 resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, and FreeSync Premium support.
Looking ahead to what might come next, there's a database entry at the EEC website that shows Lenovo registered three more Legion Go systems: Legion Go S 8ARP1, Legion Go 8AHP2, and Legion Go 8ASP2.
You can take a guess on what those model names denote, but the timing is interesting, in that it follows a recent leak suggesting that AMD is readying a Ryzen Z2 chip lineup. According to the leak, the top-end Ryzen Z2 Extreme will be based on Strix Point and feature a 3+5 core configuration, meaning 3 high performance Zen 5 cores and 5 Zen 5c efficiency cores.
It's also suggested that the chip will flex a 16-core RDNA 3.5 GPU, which if true, could give next-gen gaming handhelds a significant performance boost over the crop of Z1/Z1 Extreme handhelds.
Looking at the registered Lenovo Go handheld model names, the "HP2" in "8AHP2" could point to Hawk Point with a Ryzen Z2 chip, while the "SP2" in "8ASP2" could denote a Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip based on Strix Point. Meanwhile, the "RP1" in the "8ARP1" model could potentially mean a Rembrandt version of the Ryzen Z2 lineup.
That's all just speculation, though, as the EEC listing doesn't offer up any concrete details. Still, it's plausible at the very least.
