Lenovo’s Legion gaming phone has a pop-up selfie camera next to it

Lenovo has announced its first gaming phone, the Legion Phone Duel, and I have to tackle its most interesting feature from the start: the pop-up selfie camera that’s embedded in the side of the phone, just as rumors suggested in May. Since the most popular games are played in landscape mode, it is a logical place for the camera as it ensures that your palm does not obscure the lens if you are video chatting or streaming live during a game.

The pop-up camera is a 20-megapixel sensor with an f / 2.2 aperture and an 81.7-degree field of view. This might not lead to the best selfies or video quality, and it’s not an ideal place to take a quick selfie. Lenovo provided enough space in the camera cabinet to include a status light for the camera, like most laptops.

That being said, the Legion gaming phone is not a laptop, and while I can imagine some use cases where it would be helpful to have a side-mounted selfie camera on a phone, I admit I hate being seen taking a selfie with this phone. The rear camera array sits right in the middle of the back of the phone, which is also not the most convenient location. However, gaming phones have become a playing field for cool features like these, so I’m willing to give Lenovo credit for trying something new here.

Image: Lenovo

The Legion Phone Duel (or Legion Phone Pro as it’s called in China, where it will be released for the first time this month) features the Snapdragon 865 Plus processor, up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. With this chipset, it is also a 5G-ready phone that can take advantage of the sub-6GHz spectrum. Lenovo has also included dual-vibration motors that it says will make games feel more immersive, as well as touch-sensitive ultrasonic sensors so you can map what would normally be virtual on-screen buttons to the edge of the phone, mimicking the feel of a controller. real.

Like the Asus ROG Phone II, the Legion Phone Duel has multiple USB-C ports, one on the bottom of the phone when held in portrait mode and one in front of the pop-up selfie camera on the side. You can use either one to charge the phone, but interestingly, you can quickly charge the phone’s two internal 2,500 mAh batteries in about 30 minutes by connecting USB-C cables to both ports. It may sound silly, but at least it will light up quickly.

Now the bad news: Lenovo has no plans to launch this phone in the US It will first arrive in China in July, then select markets in Asia, Latin America and the EMEA regions (Europe, Middle East, Africa). It’s kind of disappointing to hear it because frankly I think we all deserve a phone that has the words “Smart outside” and “Wild inside” engraved on the back.

Image: Lenovo