Gaming on a pill is a wierd sort of compromise. The display screen is nice, the {hardware} is usually genuinely highly effective, and the library is gigantic, however you’re nonetheless holding a slab of glass together with your thumbs smudging throughout digital buttons. Controllers assist, and devoted gaming tablets like Lenovo’s Legion Tab have attracted a wholesome ecosystem of equipment. None of them, although, seems fairly like this.
Lenovo has quietly launched the Legion Y700 Pill Arcade Dock in China, a snap-on peripheral that turns the 8.8-inch Legion Tab right into a miniature arcade cupboard. The pill slots into the dock and connects by USB-C, at which level you may have a joystick, eight coloured motion buttons, and 5 extra buttons alongside the highest edge. That’s 14 bodily inputs whole, which covers most of what traditional arcade video games and retro emulators would ever demand from a participant.
Designer: Lenovo
The idea is simple, and the attraction is fast. Retro gaming on Android has quietly matured into one of many extra compelling causes to personal a robust compact pill, and a joystick modifications the texture of that have in a method no gamepad fairly replicates. Combating video games, run-and-gun titles, and traditional beat-em-ups have been constructed round a stick and a row of buttons, and enjoying them with a thumbstick at all times includes a small however nagging sense of compromise that this dock resolves with out a lot ceremony.
The dock is listed on Lenovo’s Chinese language retailer for ¥399, which converts to roughly $60 stateside. For an adjunct with this stage of novelty, that pricing is surprisingly restrained. The Legion Tab itself carries actual gaming {hardware}, and the dock is actually asking whether or not you’d like to sometimes use it standing upright like a bartop cupboard. At $60, the reply doesn’t require a lot deliberation.
The extra sensible query is whether or not the controls maintain as much as repeated use. Arcade joysticks and buttons sit on a spectrum from satisfying to mushy, relying virtually solely on the microswitches beneath, and Lenovo hasn’t printed specs on what’s inside this one. The snap-lock set up is designed for fast meeting, which is handy, however a docking mechanism that flexes throughout aggressive joystick inputs would undermine the entire level.
There’s additionally the matter of availability. That is at the moment a China-only product, appropriate with the Legion Y700 Gen 4 and Gen 5 tablets. The Legion Tab Gen 5 is heading to the US and international markets at $849, however the dock has no confirmed worldwide launch alongside it. Lenovo launched a gamepad accent for a similar pill at roughly the identical time, and neither has been formally introduced exterior China.
For a pill that positions itself as a severe transportable gaming machine, the arcade dock is both a genuinely intelligent extension of that id or a enjoyable novelty that can stay principally in social media posts and Chinese language gaming cafes. The shape issue has apparent allure, and the $60 worth removes many of the monetary hesitation. What’s much less clear is whether or not the controls are constructed to outlive just a few hundred rounds of Avenue Fighter or simply look nice in product images.
