Practically precisely a year back, we were openly yearning for the day when more portable video gaming PC makers might ditch Windows in favor of SteamOS (without needing to turn to sensitive informal workarounds). Now, that day has actually lastly come, with Lenovo revealing the upcoming Legion Go S as the very first non-Valve portable to come with a formally certified copy of SteamOS preinstalled. And Valve assures that it will quickly deliver a beta variation of SteamOS for users to “download and test themselves.”

As Lenovo’s somewhat scaled down followup to 2023’s huge Legion Go, the Legion Go S will not include the removable controllers of its predecessor. The brand-new PC video gaming portable will come in 2 unique variations, one with the now-standard Windows 11 setup and another edition that’s the very first to sport the (just recently dripped) “Powered by SteamOS” branding.

The absence of a Windows license appears to add to a lower beginning expense for the “Powered by SteamOS” edition of the Legion Go S, which will begin at $500 when it’s provided in May. Lenovo states the Windows edition of the gadget– readily available beginning this month– will begin at $730, with “additional configurations” readily available in May beginning as low as $600.

Both the Windows and SteamOS variations of the Legion Go S will weigh in at 1.61 pounds with an 8-inch 1200p 120 Hz LCD screen, as much as 32GB of RAM, and either AMD’s brand-new Ryzen Z2 Go chipset or an older Z1 core.

Beware, Windows?

Valve stated in a post on Tuesday that the Legion Go S will sport the very same variation of SteamOS presently discovered on the Steam Deck. The business’s work getting SteamOS onto the Legion Go S will likewise “improve compatibility with other handhelds,” Valve stated, and the business “is working on SteamOS support for more devices in the future.”