Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2 packs two fans for peak gaming power
Lenovo has a new Android gaming phone, and the Legion Phone Duel 2 is aiming to not only deliver the power for full mobile gameplay, but the media credentials modern streamers demand. The unusually-shaped smartphone includes a twin-fan cooling system and a larger-than-average battery, to keep it running at maximum speed for longer.
On the front, there's a 6.92-inch 20.5:9 aspect AMOLED display. It's running at 2460 x 1080 resolution, with a 144 Hz refresh rate and 8-bit HDR support. Lenovo has used a 720Hz touch sampling rate, too, for faster response times.
Brightness is 800 nits standard, with 1,300 nits peak, and there's 111.1-percent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage plus HDR10+ certification. It's protected with a slab of Gorilla Glass 5, and the whole phone tips the scales at 259 grams.
Inside there's Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888, with either 12GB, 16GB, or a whopping 18GB of LPDDR5 memory. Storage is either 256GB or 512GB. For connectivity, there's 5G, WiFi, and Bluetooth, and the Legion Phone Duel 2 runs Lenovo's ZUI 12.5 based on Android 11.
You can have the fastest chipset in the world, of course, and still get mediocre performance if you don't take care of heat. Lenovo is using both active and passive cooling, with a vapor chamber for liquid cooling, and then twin turbo-fans to really keep temperatures down. Both the intake fan and output fan have 29 blades apiece, the former running at 12,500 rpm and the latter at 15,000 rpm. They make around 27 dB at 30 cm distance, Lenovo says.
Since the Legion Phone Duel 2 is designed to be held horizontally, like a Nintendo Switch, Lenovo has put the processor in the center away from the gamer's fingers. There are also eight virtual buttons, including four ultrasonic shoulder keys, two rear capacitance screen touchpoints, and two in-display force touchpoints. Lenovo is also using a new Dual HaptiX dual-X-axis haptic vibration motor system, for more accurate touch feedback.
A pop-out 44-megapixel selfie camera with an 84-degree lens pops out of the side of the phone – so that it's positioned right for when you're streaming yourself during gameplay – and there's onboard background removal, real-time overlay and effects generation, and virtual avatars.
The rear cameras meanwhile, are a 64-megapixel f/1.9 wide angle, and a 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide. There's HDR10+ video recording at 4k/30fps, or 8k video recording at 24fps.
On the audio side, there are dual front-facing speakers with 7-magnet drivers and dual smart amplifiers, plus Dolby Atmos support. Four microphones add features like background noise reduction, and there's 48 kHz / 16-bit output support via USB-C.
For power, there are dual 2,750 mAh batteries for a total of 5,500 mAh. Dual 90W USB-C charging ports on the side mean that 17 minutes plugged in is good for 4,500 mAh of charge, Lenovo says.
In China, where it'll be called the Lenovo Legion Phone 2 Pro, it'll go on sale in April; availability in Asia Pacific and Europe will follow in May. It'll be priced from 999 euro ($1,160) for the 16GB/512GB configuration and with a bundled charging dock, while the 12GB/256GB version without the dock will be 799 euro ($930).
As for North America, Lenovo says that it's still deciding whether to bring the Legion Phone Duel 2 to market.