Lenovo Legion gaming phone to sport 144Hz screen, dual liquid cooling

Gaming is very big these days, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That's true for mobile gaming even when people are practically less mobile these days anyway. Ironically, gaming smartphones have been a bit quiet, perhaps due to sales and the economy being affected by that same global health situation. It almost seems like a bad time to launch a new high-end gaming smartphone but Lenovo, whose Legion phone may actually be overdue, isn't going to let that stop its debut next week.

Whispers of Lenovo bringing its Legion gaming brand to mobile started as far back as December last year, right before the coronavirus reared its ugly head. Aside from a rumor hear and some deduction there, the Lenovo Legion phone hasn't exactly been taking much of the limelight. With just a few days before the expected announcement, it seems that Lenovo is finally drumming up some hype.

As a gaming phone, much of the focus will naturally be on performance and speed, including a screen capable of 144Hz refresh rates you only see on laptops or monitors. While the Legion phone or whatever its name will be is expected to be driven by an overclocked Snapdragon 865+, its performance will also be determined by how much it will be throttled by the heat. Dual-chamber passive liquid cooling will supposedly alleviate those problems while a "14-point temperature control matrix" is expected to offer more accurate temperature monitoring.

It seems that Lenovo won't be skimping on the packaging either, or at least for the units that might be sent to reviewers. A large and probably wasteful black box houses a smaller smartphone box inside. This smaller box opens like some hi-tech container to reveal the Legion phone inside.

We also catch a glimpse of the phone's back and it looks more like a Motorola Edge (non-Plus), sans the fingerprint scanner. It definitely doesn't look like any of its gaming smartphone peers and definitely not something easily identifiable as part of Lenovo's Legion. We'll have to wait on July 21 to see what the real deal will be.