A budget retro gaming handheld carrying Lenovo branding and loaded with thousands of copyrighted game files has surfaced on AliExpress, and the company has confirmed it is real. The Lenovo G02 [aliexpress] sells for roughly $73 and was initially mistaken for a counterfeit before Lenovo acknowledged the device was produced under license for the Chinese market.
A "white-label" product stamped with the brand (and not a product of Lenovo's well-respected Legion gaming division), it's a low-end generic handheld. The G02 has a 4.5-inch IPS display at 1024 by 768 resolution and runs on a quad-core Rockchip RK3326 processor clocked at 1.5 GHz. A 4,000 mAh battery is good for "three to six hours" of play, and it has a MicroSD card slot. The device runs a customized Linux build that emulates more than 30 classic systems, including the PSP, PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Advance.
YouTubers who have gotten their hands on the device say it handles basic 2D and 16-bit retro games smoothly, but struggles to emulate later consoles such as Sega's Dreamcast. As a white-label device, long-term updates and support may be limited.
The more interesting matter is the ROM library that comes preloaded. Including copyrighted games is common with cheap Chinese emulation handhelds, but a legal gray area in other markets and, legal commentators say, an outright liability to Lenovo in the west. Nintendo, whose titles reportedly appear on the device, has a long record of aggressive enforcement against unlicensed distribution. Online marketplaces don't honor the China-only shipping limitation that Lenovo claims the licensee agreed to, so it remains on offer to anyone with $70 and change.
Lenovo G02 [aliexpress.us]
