I may have said, in the review of the Samsung A51, that I am not a fan of mobile gaming. My stance on this hasn’t changed but this smartphone is from a specs perspective, really really impressive.
The gaming smartphone market has some impressive and established entries. The Asus ROG Phone 3, Razer Phone 2, Black Shark 3 and a number of the high-end flagship phones.
The Legion Duel, according to Lenovo, was designed for the ground up for gamers. Companies often say that when they release any product or in this case a product that is tailored for a niche market.
That being said the first thing that is noticeable is that the rear facing cameras (64 MP and 16 MP) are positioned more centrally than on any other phone that I have seen. This according to Lenovo is because this phone was primarily meant to be used in landscape mode. So if for whatever reason a user wishes to access the camera they won’t have to adjust their grip or have their hand covering the camera.
Another gamer centric design element of this device is the motorised 20MP selfie cam. To maximise screen real estate a notch or a punch hole style front facing camera for this application would be far too obtrusive. The selfie cam (as part of the gamer centric design) paired with Lenovo’s camera software also allows users to overlay and record gameplay and stream on sites like Twitch and YouTube.
Hardware
The Legion Duel will come with Qualcomm’s flagship 856+ processor, and an Adreno 650 graphics card. The device will have a 6.6 inch (16.76 cm) AMOLED 1080p display and an under display optical fingerprint scanner.
The phone will come in two storage configurations, 256 GB on board memory will have 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB will have 16 gigs of RAM. The phone won’t however have expandable storage.
Strangely, with all this horsepower the Legion Duel will only record video in 4K at 30 frames per second. hmm…
To better disperse heat, the Legion Duel has two 2500 mAh batteries on either end of the phone. The logic board has been placed centrally so that the user’s hands won’t be directly over it.
Similar to the Asus ROG Phone 2, the Legion Duel will have multiple USB-C ports. One will be placed conventionally at the bottom of the phone when held in portrait mode, and the other will be opposite (below) the pop up selfie cam. The second port will ensure that the phone can be charged during a gaming session without having a cable in the way of the user’s hand.
Speaking of charging the Legion Duel will have “90W Turbo Power Charging” taking the phone from zero to half full in 10 minutes, and a full charge will take about 30 minutes. The 30-minute charge time can be achieved by plugging in both USB-C ports.
The Legion Duel is also expected to feature ultrasonic trigger buttons, dual vibrating motors and RGB lighting on the “Y” emblem at the back of the device.
Release and availability
The initial release will be in China later this month and the phone will make its way to selected markets in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. At this stage there hasn’t been any indication that this device will available in the United States.
The price for the Legion Duel 2 hasn’t yet been specified, but it will be eye watering and especially so if it makes its way to Zimbabwe. Here’s hoping that in the near future I can come across one on display in an electronics shop somewhere in Harare, or in the hands of someone lucky enough to acquire one.
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