SteamOS Officially Welcomes Lenovo Legion Go S
SteamOS, the trimmed-down gaming OS from Valve, has officially welcomed in the Lenovo Legion Go S with the new stable version, 3.7.8. That is a big news as it makes the Legion Go S the first device outside the Valve's own Steam Deck family to get this certification on an official level. While the SteamOS-native version is just around the corner for the Legion Go S, this update does mean that those of us with an existing Windows model can now (officially) try out the SteamOS experience.
I've been dying to try Valve's OS on this hardware ever since I heard of the coming compatibility. I mean, it does sometimes feel like forcing a square peg into a round hole to run Windows on a handheld. So I decided to find out how well SteamOS measures up against Windows on the Legion Go S.
Diving into the Installation
First thing was to get SteamOS on the device. After an initial hiccup with an untrusty external drive, I switched to a reliable one, which fizzed through the installation. Valve has instructions for this: grab the recovery image, use a tool such as Rufus to burn it to a USB stick, and boot your Legion Go S from it. Essential step: you'll need to pop into the BIOS of the Legion Go S (hold volume up and the power button when it's off) to disable Secure Boot. I also made sure "boot from USB" was enabled in the BIOS.
With the USB connected, I selected it from the boot menu, and suddenly I was staring at the glorious SteamOS environment. Here, it was a straightforward "wipe and install" procedure. Next on the agenda was connecting to Wi-Fi and logging into Steam. The whole process itself took less than half an hour; however, bear in mind that this varies according to internet speed.
What made it feel really close to "official" is that little guided tour of SteamOS I had through the Legion Go S buttons and their functions within the OS. It culminated with a nice touch: a friendly "We hope you enjoy your Legion Go S."
Interestingly, the recovery image actually installs version 3.7.7, not the latest, 3.7.8. No worries, though, an update prompt came a-callin', and after plugging the device in (it wouldn't update on battery alone), I was updated to the latest version in no time.
Performance: The Battle of SteamOS versus Windows
On to the main deal: the gaming performance. Make sure you set the TDP in the Steam settings overlay to 25W, matching the "Performance mode" on my Windows tests. Like on Windows, the Legion Go S throws in a nice boost up to 40W, but I've found that higher setting doesn't always translate into proportionate gains.
So, how'd it do. Let's crunch some numbers for low to medium settings:
Legion Go S gaming performance on SteamOS vs Windows at low/medium settings
- Cyberpunk: SteamOS got about 60 FPS, while Windows racked up about 45 FPS. That's a nice little leap there.
- Helldivers 2: Approximately 70 FPS on SteamOS against 60 FPS on Windows.
- Doom Eternal: Good Work here, with 75 FPS on SteamOS and 65 FPS on Windows.
- Spiderman 2: A close finish, with SteamOS at around 60 FPS, while Windows scored 61 FPS, giving the edge narrowly to Windows.
- Witcher 3: Once again, SteamOS came through at about 75 FPS against 64 FPS on Windows.
The trend is clear: SteamOS gives the Legion Go S a little more kick in the pants, probably due to it being a lightweight, gaming-centric operating system devoid of the background processes present on Windows.
What About Battery Life
Performance aside, how long can you game for. A look into battery endurance:
Legion Go S battery life comparison between SteamOS and Windows
- Cyberpunk: The Legion Go S on Windows (55Wh battery) gave about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The Steam Deck OLED (50Wh battery) went for about 2 hours and 10 minutes. So while this isn't a direct Legion Go S SteamOS vs Windows comparison for this game showed here, it puts context to the point.
- Hades (max FPS): Around 2 hour on Windows for the Legion Go S, compared to a whopping 4 hours 35 minutes for the Steam Deck OLED.
- Dead Cells: The Legion Go S on Windows went for about 2 hours 52 minutes. The Steam Deck OLED's efficiency really shone here, managing a hefty 7 hours 15 minutes.
(Note: The battery comparison is more oriented around the Legion Go S running Windows compared to the Steam Deck OLED. Hence while the battery life between Windows and SteamOS on all games is not directly compared on Legion Go S, it could be said that an efficient operating system like SteamOS could, on its own, provide battery savings on the Legion Go S compared to Windows, which needs to be established through further testing.)
Daily Life: The Little Things Matter
Anything beyond the numbers, and I'm probably going to be running the games at a lower TDP, call it about 15W like the Steam Deck-probably only more for the demanding titles. This might help lower the fan noise too, which can get a bit rambunctious on the Legion Go S regardless of the OS, especially during game downloads (does the Wi-Fi card get hot.).
Windows has a user-friendly fan curve, while in SteamOS, that's not very straightforward. That being said, some tools, such as Decky Loader, seem to have a plug-in or something for that. Still, even ignoring these small bits of annoyance, the entire experience feels very polished. A lighter OS, with better installs and good suspend/sleep options, plus better performance. Hard to argue against that. It truly feels that SteamOS is what Legion Go S was designed to run.
