I expected to see some new handheld gaming PCs this year at CES, but it looks like something even more exciting is in store. AMD and Lenovo are hosting an event during the week of the show, and it’ll have two special guests in attendance: Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais and Microsoft’s Jason Ronald.
I’ll be attending the event on January 7, about which Sean Hollister over at The Verge initially shared out the details. There are a couple of reasons why this event could be significant. First, Valve. Since the launch of the Asus ROG Ally, there have been a handful of these types of events featuring spokespeople from AMD, Microsoft, and the company making a handheld — Lenovo or Asus. Valve hasn’t ever been in attendance, and considering Valve makes the Linux-based Steam Deck, it would be odd for the company to have a presence.
Like most Valve employees, Pierre-Loup Griffais wears a lot of hats, but he’s been focused on the Steam Deck for a while. In fact, he’s one of the people I spoke to about the origins of Proton in the Steam Deck. The Lenovo Legion Go is a Windows-based handheld, so the fact that Griffais will be in attendance says quite a lot.
That brings us to the second interesting detail. A couple of weeks ago, Valve updated its branding guidelines with a handful of logos that say “Powered by SteamOS.” Alongside this, Even Blass leaked various images of a black Lenovo handheld with a button showing the Steam logo. Valve has been clear that it’s working to bring SteamOS to other handheld devices, and this convolution of different factors paints a pretty clear picture of what’s coming.
It’s not confirmed, but it’s just about as close to a confirmation as we’re going to get before January 7.
I’d stop short of calling this the Steam Deck 2, however. Valve says it’s working on a Steam Deck 2, and it’ll make one whenever there’s a big upgrade in performance available. There are still reasons to get excited about this handheld, though. The Lenovo Legion Go uses the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which is more powerful than the chip inside of both the Steam Deck and the Steam Deck OLED. In addition, AMD confirmed that its next-gen Ryzen Z2 Extreme will arrive early next year.
It’s impossible to say right now what this mystery handheld will be packing, but either way, it’ll be more powerful than the Steam Deck. Add on top of that the lightweight performance of SteamOS, and the true wizardry of Proton, and we might have a very compelling handheld.
Thankfully, it’s just a few shorts weeks before we know for sure. I’ll be at the event, and Lenovo is promising an opportunity to “play with the latest Lenovo Legion Go lineup.” You can bet I’ll be shouldering my way through the crowd to see whatever device is there in person.
