Do Not Buy The Lenovo Legion Go 2 For $2,000

It’s been a rough year for gaming hardware. Devices from across the industry are going up in price, but there has to be a limit. And, with the Lenovo Legion Go 2 reaching $1,999 at Best Buy, I think we’ve reached the limit for handheld gaming PCs.

And listen, I get the appeal. While I may have given the Lenovo Legion Go 2 a somewhat middling review, that was mostly because of the already-high asking price it had back in September, before the RAM crisis kicked off in earnest. Everything else about the handheld is solid: it still has the best display in a handheld and I love those silly removable controllers. But, even then it was a hard sell compared to the Xbox Ally X, which was $300 cheaper than the Legion Go 2’s starting price with the Z2 Extreme.

Fast forward to today, though, and the Xbox Ally X still hasn’t gone up in price. You can still get it for $999, for pretty comparable specs to the now $1,999 Legion Go 2. At that point, you’re paying half as much, for what, a slightly smaller screen and the same performance? I don’t know about you, but that’s an easy sell for me.

Of course, things are a little bit more complicated these days than they were 6-7 months ago. The Steam Deck is still sold out, which means the floor for handheld gaming PCs is higher than it used to be. But even still, you can get the non-X Xbox Ally for $539 at Best Buy, or even the Legion Go S for $649 with the Z2 Go. Neither of these systems will quite get you cutting edge handheld performance, but they’re both pretty comparable with the Steam Deck, especially if you get the Legion Go S with SteamOS.

Over the next few months, as we wait for the market to stabilize, I expect that there will be plenty more devices that will be going up in price. After all, the PS5 and PS5 Pro just had huge price jumps last month, and the whole appeal of consoles is that they’re supposed to be a less expensive and complicated way to play games.

But there has to be a limit to what companies can charge for this gaming hardware. I’m sure there are people out there that can drop two grand on a handheld gaming PC and not think about it. But for everyone else, there are a ton of better options out there, trust me.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra