No, Nintendo Switch is not the only portable console available on the market. If the Japanese manufacturer’s device dominates the mobile device sector by far, the competition is organized with the entry into competition of two new rivals: the Lenovo Legion Go and the PlayStation Portal. Two machines, scheduled for the month of November, that intend to find a place in the sun as Christmas approaches.
Lenovo wants its share of the pie
With Legion Go, Lenovo, a newcomer to the portable console market, intends to step on the flower beds of Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, Valve’s portable console. Officially presented on September 1 at the IFA fair in Berlin 2023 (Germany), the device of the Chinese brand is presented in the form of a console / portable PC, with an imposing design, accompanied by a solid configuration.
Running Windows 11, the machine offers an excellent quality QHD+ LCD touch screen, whose 8.8-inch diagonal makes it the most imposing panel on the market for mobile consoles. The latter is clocked at 144 Hz, ahead of the competition which tops out at 120 Hz. Good news for image quality and smooth gaming.
A true mini PC, the Legion Go packs an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and is on par with the Asus ROG Ally by offering either 12GB of RAM and either 512 or 1TB of storage depending on the configuration chosen. Adding a microSD card even takes it up to 2TB. Compatible with Steam and the Xbox game pass, the device is inspired by Nintendo Swich by offering detachable joysticks like the Joy-Con. A serious customer sells it from 799 euros.
PlayStation Portal: the fake successor to the PSP
Formalized before Lenovo Legion Go and scheduled for November 15, PlayStation Portal is not strictly speaking a new portable console. Rather, it is a device that provides the ability to remotely play titles installed on playstation 5 from a player via Remote Play.
To do this, the latter connects the device to the home Wi-Fi network of your PlayStation 5. If it also allows you to connect to an external Wi-Fi network to play outside the home, the Portal is mainly developed to act as a secondary screen so that you can continue a game in bed while someone else watches TV at home.
Its 8-inch LCD screen offers a definition of 1080p for 60 frames per second and the machine includes specific functions for the DualSense controller be the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Its price: 219.99 euros.
Asus, Valve and the others on the lookout
That said, and while the allure of the novelty will probably entice gamers, Lenovo and Sony will have a lot to do to force their machines into a market close to saturation. Not to mention the Nintendo Switch, these devices will also have to contend with the Steam Deck, Valve’s ultra-powerful portable console, which offers the ability to run Steam’s catalog of games.
It will also be necessary to trust the powerful Asus ROG ally, WHO It looks like a small Windows 11 PC, with many pre-installed game stores and the Microsoft environment.
Other contenders are also in the running. This is particularly the case with the OneXPlayer 2 Pro or the Aya Neo and its variations. Players have many options to choose from. The price and respective functionalities of these different machines should tip the balance in favor of one or the other, depending on your appetite for a particular universe.
Source: BFM TV
