Skip to main content

Lenovo’s cool new gaming phone leaked, but you can’t buy it

Created in response to Asus’ popular ROG Phone series, Lenovo Legio- branded smartphones have been well-received in China and compete against the likes of similarly themed products from Black Shark and RedMagic. The company’s next-generation gaming smartphone, the Legion Y90, has been in the news for quite some time and is now the subject of additional leaks.

The latest piece of information comes courtesy of a popular Chinese leaker who revealed key hardware specifications of the device on his Weibo account. As expected of a 2022 flagship-grade gaming phone, the Legion Y90 is loaded with powerful hardware, and has some unique design elements.

Understated looks

A leaked image of the Lenovo Legion Y90 showing its rear panel.
GSMArena

Previously leaked images and video of the Legion Y90 show a device with a surprisingly tame look for a gaming phone. There are no wild cuts and creases, and the rear panel of the device is largely smooth and unextraordinary. However, the phone does get what Lenovo calls a “dual-engine air-cooled” system at the rear. There is little information about this cooling mechanism right now, but a Lenovo official has claimed that the system will allow continuous gaming at a high frame rates for extended sessions.

Eye-popping hardware

Gaming smartphones tend to go overboard with outrageous hardware specs that make even top-end flagship-grade phones look ordinary. And the Legion Y90 doesn’t disappoint on that front. The phone gets the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip — currently the fastest processor available for Android smartphones. The top-end variant of the phone is expected to ship with a colossal 18GB of RAM and will offer 512GB of internal storage. While not confirmed yet, this top-end variant could be marketed as the Lenovo Legion Y90 Pro.

The rest of the specs include a large 6.92-inch AMOLED panel that supports a 144Hz refresh rate and a 720Hz (that’s not a typo) touch sampling rate. The phone is also expected to feature a massive 5,500mAh battery that will support 68-watt fast charging. To aid its gaming capabilities, the phone gets dual X-axis vibration motors and dual USB-C ports that will let you charge the phone during gameplay.

Who will get it?

Previous reports indicated that Lenovo intended to launch the Legion Y90 in the first week of January 2022. That hasn’t happened, and there has been no word lately on this front. As was the case with previous Lenovo Legion phones, there is very little chance of this one making it to the U.S.

Editors' Recommendations

Rahul Srinivas
Rahul is a smartphone buff turned tech journalist who has been tinkering with all things mobile since the early 2000s. He has…
11 features in iOS 17 that I can’t wait to use on my iPhone
ios 17 11 features i cant wait to use on my iphone mashup

Apple made a big splash at WWDC 2023 this year as it introduced the first major new product since the Apple Watch with the Vision Pro spatial computing headset. But of course, we also got software announcements for iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS 14 Sonoma.

Though I feel that iOS 17 is an overall underwhelming update compared to the past few years with iOS 14 and iOS 16, there’s still a lot of interesting stuff coming. The developer beta is out now, and people have been diving into all that iOS 17 has to offer so far. And you know what? There’s plenty to talk about — including a few things Apple didn't even mention during the keynote.

Read more
I put the iPhone’s Dynamic Island on my Pixel 7 Pro — and I can’t go back
The expanded DynamicSpot Dynamic Island at the top of the Pixel 7 Pro.

The Apple iPhone 14 Pro got a big refresh last year, and key to that was a new selfie camera design with a pill-shaped cutout. Only, this is no normal hole -- it's the home of a new feature, the oddly-named "Dynamic Island." It's a notification bubble that lives behind the selfie camera that displays information like music tracks, timers, and anything else you need to know, but don't need a full screen for. If you're playing music on Spotify, it'll display the track name and controls. If someone calls you, it'll show the person's contact information. Waiting for an Uber? It'll show you how far away it is. It's even tied into the Face ID unlock process. It's a great use of the selfie camera — and one with a bright future.

At least, that's what we thought. The Dynamic Island has had a tough start, as app support was extremely limited, meaning it didn't live up to Apple's promises. This persisted for a number of months before the Dynamic Island finally got what it needed to live up to its hype.

Read more
This Pixel Watch 2 leak just made it the 2023 smartwatch I can’t wait for
The Pixel Watch on a person's wrist.

Google’s first attempt at the smartwatch ecosystem was the Pixel Watch, which served fine hardware and rewarding software married to underwhelming battery life and some missing health-tracking features. It looks like Google will address all the damning foibles in one fell swoop later this year with the Pixel Watch 2.

According to 9to5Google, Google is switching away from Samsung’s Exynos processor fitted inside the Pixel Watch. Instead, the company is sourcing Qualcomm’s W5 series flagship smartwatch chip for the second-gen Pixel Watch. That’s great news — not just for the Pixel Watch legacy, but also for the whole ecosystem.

Read more