Lenovo is mostly known for its PCs and laptops, and the company even has a gaming subdivision for that market going by Lenovo Legion. It looks like the manufacturer wants to capitalize on that name for its first gaming smartphone. As XDA Developers reports, Lenovo is working on a handset called “Legion Gaming Phone” with high-end hardware, improved thermals, two USB-C ports, and a pop-up camera on the side.
Lenovo has already started promoting the Legion phone on Weibo with renders, posters, and videos, teasing a Snapdragon 865 and a side-facing secondary USB-C port. The company touts that the handset will charge at up to 90W, made possible by a new thermal architecture that supposedly keeps the device cool even during intense gaming sessions. As you can tell by the Chinese marketing, the phone is primarily tailored towards Asian countries, including India.
On top of the official material, XDA Developers has also shared two of their own screenshots of an unreleased marketing video. They show the phone’s back, giving away that there’ll be two cameras and a Y-shaped logo that will presumably lights up. There’s also a Legion logo to the side of the phone, complete with outlines that give away the pop-up mechanism for the front-facing camera. One picture also clearly shows the two USB-C ports, with lighting bolts making their way towards each.
Lenovo already confirmed that the phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 865, but XDA Developers got hold of some more information: It’ll have UFS 3.0 internal storage and LPDDDR5 RAM, though there’s no word on exact numbers. It should come with a flat 144Hz screen with an FHD+ resolution of 2340×1080 and a 270Hz touch sampling rate. Its main rear camera sports 64MP, and there’s supposed to be a 16MP wide-angle. The front pop-up camera should have 20MP. The Legion phone will run Lenovo’s ZUI 12 on top of Android 10.
XDA Developers isn’t 100% convinced that the handset will wind up looking exactly as depicted in the marketing images, and the company might have hidden the actual size of the bezels (which wouldn’t be the first time). Still, the outlet thinks that this is at least the general direction we’re headed concerning looks.
A side pop-up camera might be really useful for someone who uses their phone for gaming, just like the bottom-facing secondary USB-C port — these features should make the handset a first-class landscape citizen, which might help for gaming livestreams (and even video chats and selfies). I don’t think that a ton of other smartphones will follow this trend, but it’s certainly an intriguing derivation from the norm for people who are interested in it. We’re generally still reluctant to recommend gaming phones as primary handsets, though.
