IFA technically kicks off today in Berlin, but it seems like Lenovo may have won the thing outright. I’ve given the company plenty of credit in the past for its willingness to try new things in this oft-staid world of consumer electronics, and it’s really come out of the gates swinging.
Much of its IFA has been focused on the gaming side of things — specifically through its Legion line of products, and there are two big additions that warrant mention here. First up is the real left-field addition, the Legion Glasses. In a world lacking a cohesive augmented reality vision, the Chinese manufacturer is better on gaming. Not casual gaming, mind, rather the PC variety.
Image Credits: Lenovo
There are certain shared characteristics with Apple’s vision for the Vision Pro. You could say there’s an approximation of spatial computing. “Wearable display is probably the most accurate description. Here however, the system is meant to approximate a large gaming monitor. It accomplishes that with the inclusion of Micro-OLED panels, with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution for each eye, coupled with a 60Hz refresh rate.
Given all that, it’s impressive that the company’s managed to keep things down to $329 (it’s all relative, folks). That’s due out in October, alongside the Legion Go.
I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Nintendo’s Switch floating around, owing to its on-board processing, via the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme — in contrast to the Steam Deck’s streaming. The benefit of playing games locally should be clear to anyone who’s encountered even the slightest bit of latency with cloud gaming.
The handheld sports an 8.8-inch QHD Plus display and a decently sized 49.2Wh battery. It’s designed to play PC games, which is a nice bounty to tap into. There’s 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage. The Switch-style detachable controls are also a nice touch. It’s gonna set you back $699.