This Windows gaming handheld has a display screen that folds in half

Lenovo put a foldable show on a gaming handheld. The Legion Go Fold Concept is a Windows-based handheld with a versatile POLED show, removable Joy-Con-like controllers, and a folio case to show the entire thing right into a mini laptop computer.

You can use it as an ordinary Steam Deck-esque handheld with the show folded all the way down to 7.7 inches and controllers hooked up at its sides, or you possibly can unfold it for an even bigger expertise. When unfolded, the controllers will be repositioned to all 4 sides, permitting you to play with the display screen in vertical or horizontal orientations.

In vertical splitscreen mode, you possibly can put your sport on one half of the display screen and a second window (like your chat or sport information) on the opposite half. Horizontal fullscreen mode offers your sport the total 11.6 inches of actual property in a 16:10 side ratio. To go into laptop computer mode, you take away the controllers and mount the hand-held right into a folio case with a stand, built-in keyboard, and trackpad. The controllers will be put right into a separate grip mount to unify them as one gamepad.

There are numerous methods you should utilize this folding handheld, together with turning certainly one of its controllers right into a vertical mouse like on different Legion Go handhelds, however there’s one factor it doesn’t do: fold down to shut and defend its display screen. The Go Fold solely folds outwards, so don’t count on a Nintendo DS or GameBoy Advance-like clamshell that closes for portability. Instead, it’s all about getting larger than your common gaming handheld and providing extra. (Though we’ve tried larger earlier than.)

The Legion Go Fold has some formidable specs: an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V Lunar Lake processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and a 48Whr battery. The plastic-covered OLED has a decision of 2435 x 1712 and 165Hz refresh fee. And there’s even a second, round toushscreen on the suitable controller, beneath the face buttons. It doubles as a touchpad and generally is a assist show, permitting you to swipe between extracted UI parts from a sport (which I wouldn’t count on to be extensively supported), a clock, system monitoring, or an animated GIF (only for enjoyable).

During my transient in-person demo I didn’t get to play any graphically-intense video games — simply Balatro, which might virtually play on a potato. The display screen seemed lots sharp, however like several foldable there’s a crease down the center; it’s very seen, however you be taught to look previous it and ignore it after only a bit. The construct and really feel of the entire thing felt a little bit fragile, and detaching and reattaching the controllers was positively janky. Build high quality will hopefully be improved if this machine ever really makes it to market.

The laptop computer mode was a nice shock for me although. I didn’t count on a gaming handheld to double as a standard laptop you may get work completed on. The Legion Go Fold’s case took fairly a little bit of fumbling earlier than I set it up appropriately, but it surely shouldn’t take too lengthy to get used to when you really lived with it.

Then once more, I don’t know if anybody goes to have the ability to dwell with this factor — ever. I’d love for the Legion Go Fold to go from idea to actual product like different out-there Lenovo concepts, however I shudder to suppose what it may cost a little. The Legion Go 2 is already priced properly over $1,000. And with the continuing RAMageddon disaster we’re residing via, there’s no telling how rather more costly an precise Legion Go Fold can be if it got here out in a 12 months or extra.

But even when it’s not the sort of foldable I anticipated, and despite the fact that it might by no means come out, it’s actually cool. Now anyone please make a folding PC handheld that goes from kinda-big to actually small. I believe that’d be the one for me.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge