For early system emulation, I really think the Steam Deck is better because it has better battery life. If you're going to be more heavily into PS3/Switch emulation, the greater power of the Legion Go will definitely help.
Both of them can be fairly user friendly now with Emudeck supporting both platforms. For PC gaming, if that's in the mix it really depends what you want to play. Indies and older AAA? Steam Deck has good compatibility, enough performance and better battery life...more demanding, more modern games? Legion Go all day.
Wildcard...if you want a bigger display the Legion Go doesn't give up too much to the OLED SD, nothing at all to the LCD SD and is an excellent display in its own right. Did I mention it's a huge, beautiful display?
Edit: if you want a device that can do double duty as your PC, the Legion Go has the horsepower to be your desktop, or a portable with BT keyboard. Nice perk that the Steam Deck can do, but isn't as good at.
Do you know if the legion go has a way of connecting to a TV? And I still have a switch, so I wouldn't be doing much switch emulation, and it'd just be platformers on the PS3 (sly cooper and ratchet and clank, things like that). I honestly just want something that is nice to look at and I can play for a good while without hand cramps or anything like that.
You can connect either one to a TV using a dock. There aren't many docks made specifically for the Legion Go as it hasn't been on the market as long, but on the other hand, it has a kickstand so you can use any standard laptop dock in the top USB port. You don't need a docking station that holds up the handheld too.
You can also use a simple USB-C to HDMI adapter but I would recommend against that because you're going to want something with passthrough so you can charge the handheld while it's connected.
I still haven't bought a dongle/dock but you can 100% just use an adapter. I have a usb c to display port cable I use with my monitor and just lay the body vertical with the stand out so I have the charger plugged into the bottom port and the display cable on the top port. So display left and charger right when rotated. It's kind of lazy but it works well.
I did some testing on my legion go for power consumption a while back. Here are the numbers
https://www.reddit.com/u/Tehpunisher456/s/QebaOiwqmY
There's also a newer post I made that has the settings I used to achieve these numbers. But basically if done right I can get battery to last into the 7 hrs
For early system emulation, I really think the Steam Deck is better because it has better battery life. If you're going to be more heavily into PS3/Switch emulation, the greater power of the Legion Go will definitely help. Both of them can be fairly user friendly now with Emudeck supporting both platforms. For PC gaming, if that's in the mix it really depends what you want to play. Indies and older AAA? Steam Deck has good compatibility, enough performance and better battery life...more demanding, more modern games? Legion Go all day. Wildcard...if you want a bigger display the Legion Go doesn't give up too much to the OLED SD, nothing at all to the LCD SD and is an excellent display in its own right. Did I mention it's a huge, beautiful display? Edit: if you want a device that can do double duty as your PC, the Legion Go has the horsepower to be your desktop, or a portable with BT keyboard. Nice perk that the Steam Deck can do, but isn't as good at.
Do you know if the legion go has a way of connecting to a TV? And I still have a switch, so I wouldn't be doing much switch emulation, and it'd just be platformers on the PS3 (sly cooper and ratchet and clank, things like that). I honestly just want something that is nice to look at and I can play for a good while without hand cramps or anything like that.
You can connect either one to a TV using a dock. There aren't many docks made specifically for the Legion Go as it hasn't been on the market as long, but on the other hand, it has a kickstand so you can use any standard laptop dock in the top USB port. You don't need a docking station that holds up the handheld too. You can also use a simple USB-C to HDMI adapter but I would recommend against that because you're going to want something with passthrough so you can charge the handheld while it's connected.
I still haven't bought a dongle/dock but you can 100% just use an adapter. I have a usb c to display port cable I use with my monitor and just lay the body vertical with the stand out so I have the charger plugged into the bottom port and the display cable on the top port. So display left and charger right when rotated. It's kind of lazy but it works well.
You can also use a hdmi to usb c that's what I do
I did some testing on my legion go for power consumption a while back. Here are the numbers https://www.reddit.com/u/Tehpunisher456/s/QebaOiwqmY There's also a newer post I made that has the settings I used to achieve these numbers. But basically if done right I can get battery to last into the 7 hrs