One of the reasons I tend to buy and use game consoles instead of PCs for gaming is because consoles tend to be a better user experience: There’s an OS where updates are painless and managed for me, DRM is non-visible (just put in the disc/cartridge) and you just play when you feel like playing.

With a Windows PC on the other hand, if you leave that catching dust for weeks or months to then decide to play a game, you’ll get frustrated with Windows… being Windows.

A while back I bought a Lenovo Legion Go for my girlfriend and myself; the idea was that we can easily play our Windows multiplayer games on a handheld which doesn’t need much energy and which can of course run like a desktop by docking it (we usually use our Apple Silicon MacBooks as daily drivers which are energy efficient but also don’t run games).

The problem with the Lenovo Legion Go, of course, is that it comes shipped with Windows 11… and we don’t play games often. We decided to play games this evening and we spent about an hour just going through Windows updates and things and ended up … not playing games.

The good news is, that Valve announced back in January 2025 that they’ll bring SteamOS to other handhelds… and I’ve seen a beta pop up this month! And, well, now it’s ready and stable (I installed version 3.7.7 and was offered an update to 3.7.8 after the installation).

I quickly downloaded the official SteamOS image (3.7.7), flashed it to a USB stick (while being on the side, backing up any files I had on my Legion Go, installing firmware updates like UEFI and game controllers) to then simply erase the device and install SteamOS… the installation was relatively painless, I disabled secure boot as instructed, booted from USB and saw an option (icon) on the KDE Plasma desktop to erase the device and install SteamOS… it didn’t take long and after a reboot, there it was!

Of course it had to install some updates (Steam itself), get to the stable channel (version 3.7.8), and so forth (very user friendly made btw!) but I’m just happily downloading my games now as I write this post because I now have a system that just boots into what it should be: An easy to use game console with no fuss, no Windows…

The ingenious part, though, is that unlike with Windows where you start Steam in big picture mode, SteamOS has a separate Steam desktop which is truly like a console, fully controllable by the, well, controllers, even the special Legion Go buttons work to bring up the menus and quick settings. When you insert an SD card, it will also pop up under storage and allow you to format it and use it as target device. Everything really “just works” as if it were a first party device by Valve!

With me being such a casual gamer and wanting something that “just works”, I’ll never look back at Windows (no matter how exclusive you make your titles, Microsoft! I simply won’t buy them!)

Do you want to upgrade your experience on your Legion Go as well? You can follow the official instructions here: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2BB3

Shoutout to “It’s FOSS News” which was the first clear source I stumbled upon about the current state of SteamOS on third party handhelds: https://news.itsfoss.com/steamos-third-party-handhelds/

I know this is not a great review or my usual article quality, but I really just wanted to spread the word that you can now finally get rid of Windows on the Legion Go and get a decent experience!

Now, time for me to have a shower, go to bed and play some games before I sleep! Perhaps donate a cup of coffee, although I’ll only drink it after some sleep. ;)

PS Just did test run “Halo Infinite” which, funny enough, runs fine on SteamOS but kept crashing with Windows. Of course, with SteamOS the device also has more free resources for the actual games. (: And it runs really good (and much better), too! The only thing I’m missing with SteamOS compared to Windows is the ability to adjust the power mode on the fly (performance, balanced, power save, etc.) but this can at least be adjusted in the UEFI menu by holding volume up while powering the device on; there’s also a “balance” (basically “auto”) mode there but so far I only tried “performance” and “quiet” (which is basically the powersave). I don’t recommend “quiet”, as things start to lag.

Wasn’t I supposed to take a shower and go to bed?! Cya! Enjoy SteamOS! :D