Lenovo has teased a new addition to its Legion gaming lineup, but unlike its existing handheld PCs, this one is designed primarily for cloud gaming. Called the Legion C700, the upcoming device is being developed in collaboration with Tencent’s START cloud gaming platform.

For now, only the design of the handheld has been revealed, while other details are still kept under wraps. Lenovo promises to share more information later in August this year.

Based on the teasers shared by Lenovo on Weibo, the Legion C700 sports a familiar handheld design in white with an asymmetrical controller layout. It features offset analogue sticks, a D-pad, ABXY face buttons, rear paddle buttons, and what appears to be a large vented section on the back.

The on-screen interface shown in the teaser is powered by Tencent START, a cloud gaming service that allows users to stream PC and console-quality games without downloading or installing them locally. Similar to services such as NVIDIA GeForce NOW and Xbox Cloud Gaming, game processing is handled on remote servers, allowing even modest hardware to play demanding titles as long as there is a stable internet connection.

This cloud-first approach could potentially allow Lenovo to use less powerful and more energy-efficient hardware than traditional Windows gaming handhelds. That said, details for the C700’s chipset, display specifications, battery capacity or operating system are still not known. 

The Legion C700 is not Lenovo’s first attempt at entering the cloud gaming handheld segment. Back in 2021, the company unveiled the Legion Play (shown above), an Android-based handheld that was also developed with Tencent and featured a customised launcher for cloud gaming services.

At the time, the Legion Play was equipped with a 7-inch Full HD HDR10 display and a 7,000mAh battery, but it was never commercially released despite appearing on Lenovo’s own website. With the Legion C700 now officially teased, Lenovo appears to be revisiting the concept with a product that is finally intended for release.

Given that the handheld is being developed as an exclusive collaboration with Tencent START, there is a possibility that the Legion C700 could initially be limited to the Chinese market. The service itself primarily serves users in China, making an international release less certain unless Lenovo introduces a version compatible with cloud gaming services available in other regions.

(Source: Lenovo [Weibo] / Notebookcheck / retrohandhelds.gg)

Updated 7:42 pm, Mon, 13 July 26