Logitech G Cloud Gaming Handheld review: terminally online - The Verge

Logitech’s G Cloud Gaming Handheld is simply a heartbreaker. It’s a joyousness to crippled on: it’s overmuch much comfy to usage than the Nintendo Switch, and erstwhile the conditions are right, it works similar a dream.

With a bully transportation to a unreality gaming service, it often felt similar I was utilizing a portable Xbox, oregon had someway crammed a $1,500 gaming PC into a tiny footprint. The remainder of the time, it’s a mediocre Android tablet with a controller grafted on. It’s conscionable not amusive to use. Sure, it tin entree a immense room of Android games, but trying to play the likes of Fortnite oregon Genshin Impact connected its sluggish hardware was an workout successful frustration. 

At $349.99, the G Cloud Gaming Handheld costs arsenic overmuch arsenic a Nintendo Switch OLED and astir arsenic overmuch arsenic a Steam Deck, some of which are inactive bully gaming machines erstwhile the net goes down. (Note: the G Cloud Gaming Handheld is $299.99 during its preorder phase, but the terms volition leap up by $50 connected October 18th.)

These flaws wouldn’t vanish with a little cost, but it’d astatine slightest beryllium easier to urge to much people, similar the work-from-home assemblage who’s ever astir Wi-Fi oregon those who already person a bully gaming PC and privation a comfy handheld to watercourse their games locally. It’s precise bully astatine that.

Logitech isn’t conscionable competing with Nintendo, Valve, oregon the myriad different niche handheld makers, similar Aya, OneXPlayer, oregon GPD; it’s competing with the telephone oregon tablet you already own. This handheld’s marquee apps — Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now — tally connected beauteous overmuch immoderate Android oregon iOS instrumentality (in immoderate cases, they’re progressive web apps — glorified webpages). It’s casual to past link a controller that you whitethorn already own, similar an Xbox controller, Backbone One, oregon a Razer Kishi V2, and commencement gaming. 

The G Cloud Gaming Handheld is a much comfy and intuitive mode to play unreality games than cobbling a controller and a smartphone together. But unless those words resonate profoundly wrong you, I don’t deliberation that’s a bully capable crushed to warrant buying one.

Cloud gaming and handheld consoles look similar a cleanable match. Instead of ponying up thousands of dollars for a gaming PC oregon being constrained by the hardware that tin acceptable successful the handheld, you wage a subscription interest to offload the dense lifting.

Relying connected unreality services to clasp up your level is simply a spot fall, but Logitech’s platform-agnostic attack isn’t astir arsenic risky a stake as, say, the Google Stadia model. The unreality crippled services that Logitech is banking connected are precise bully (as agelong arsenic your Wi-Fi is, too), and they amusement nary signs of winding down. Xbox Cloud Gaming is disposable to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers ($14.99 per month), and it comes with entree to implicit 200 Xbox games, from AAA titles from Microsoft’s studios to buzzworthy indie games. Nvidia GeForce Now is little similar Netflix and much similar Movies Anywhere successful that it collects galore of the PC games you already ain connected Steam, Epic Games Store, oregon Ubisoft Connect (plus immoderate free-to-play games) successful 1 place. The basal tier is free, though it limits you to one-hour-long 720p streaming sessions. The adjacent tier is $9.99 / period and allows for four-hour sessions astatine 1080p / 60 frames per second, which lucifer the specs of the G Cloud Gaming Handheld’s screen.

The Google Play Store gives the G Cloud Gaming Handheld adjacent much ways to play PC games you already own. For instance, the Steam Link app, which is preinstalled, lets you watercourse games from your PC either locally oregon distant from location arsenic agelong arsenic it’s connected and moving Steam. If your PC has an Nvidia GPU, I highly suggest trying retired Moonlight, a escaped open-source app that provides a good-looking, shockingly responsive gaming experience. Both Steam Link and Moonlight tin enactment implicit a section network, which requires bully networking hardware (not accelerated net speeds) to person an enjoyable session. 

Sadly, portion you tin usage Sony’s PS Remote Play app to watercourse games from your PS4 oregon PS5, the app doesn’t admit the G Cloud Gaming Handheld’s built-in controls. Touchscreen controls are the lone enactment unless you tether a DualShock 4 oregon a DualSense via Bluetooth, which defeats the intent of utilizing this handheld alternatively of your phone.

G Cloud Gaming Hardware

The G Cloud Gaming Handheld looks a batch similar a Nintendo Switch but that it has a D-pad connected the near alternatively than 4 abstracted buttons, and its close ABXY buttons are arranged Xbox-style. There are clicky enarthrosis buttons and analog triggers that person a satisfying level of travel. Logitech did a large occupation with the layout, comfort, and plan of the inputs. I lone privation it were disposable successful colors different than each achromatic with outpouring yellowish accents.

The location fastener and outpouring yellowish G fastener necessitate a small explanation. Pressing location volition ever instrumentality you straight to the handheld’s app selector, and holding it brings up a shadiness containing speedy settings, similar brightness and measurement dials. The G button’s intent is sometimes contextual. It makes cleanable consciousness successful the Xbox Cloud Gaming app, wherever pressing it volition bring up the Xbox location interface to amusement what your friends are up to, to cheque achievements, oregon to discontinue a game. Pressing it wrong the GeForce Now interface takes maine home, but it’s useless in-game during a unreality session.

Two tiny talker slits flank the USB-C charging larboard and 3.5mm headphone jack connected the bottommost of the console. Unsurprisingly, headphones dependable amended than these speakers. You tin either usage wired headphones, spell the Bluetooth route, oregon insert a USB-C audio transmitter that immoderate gaming headsets see these days. In lawsuit you were wondering, the USB-C larboard cannot present video; it’s constricted to charging, information connection, oregon audio passthrough.

The G Cloud Gaming Handheld runs connected Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 720G — sans cellular capability. It’s a midrange chipset announced successful 2020 that’s besides recovered successful the Samsung Galaxy A52 and a clump of phones released extracurricular of the US. It’s accelerated capable astatine launching apps, loading caller pages successful the Google Play Store, and moving games that aren’t ace resource-intensive, similar Dead Cells. But astir graphically intensive games tally sluggishly. It can’t multitask, which is disappointing; each clip you motorboat a caller app, it asks you to adjacent the 1 you were conscionable using.

There’s 64GB of retention built in, and it supports microSD retention expansion. Battery beingness stands up to Logitech’s claims, lasting for a twelve oregon truthful hours of gaming per charge. Unlike the acquisition of utilizing a handheld that’s really moving games disconnected the hardware, it’s chill (albeit expected) to walk an hr successful a crippled without taking a immense wound retired of the artillery life.

Its seven-inch show is the aforesaid size arsenic the 1 connected the Steam Deck and Switch OLED console, though Logitech’s IPS sheet is evidently obscurity adjacent arsenic superb arsenic an OLED. Even so, games look gorgeous successful the close Wi-Fi conditions; tiny substance is legible, and graphics don’t look excessively aliased. (Though, erstwhile streaming from the cloud, acheronian environments and objects are prone to ocular gradation.) It was a bully capable acquisition that I sometimes forgot that I was playing games hosted connected distant servers, with lone a fistful of moments erstwhile fuzzy, distorted representation prime ruined that illusion. Streamed video besides looks large if you tin grip the nationalist embarrassment of holding the handheld successful representation mode to navigate Netflix and the like. Yes, it felt weird to ticker Cyberpunk: Edgerunners connected the subway portion holding the console with 2 hands, but it worked.

The customized Android 11 interface is viable but thing special. It organizes apps successful horizontal tiles crossed the screen, with caller ones adjacent the front. You tin deed the options fastener located adjacent the apical close broadside of the handheld’s beforehand broadside to make a imperishable spot for a favourite app, which volition beryllium added beneath the scrolling tiles. There are conscionable 2 colour schemes and backgrounds offered by the software, each of which delivers a beauteous beardown gamer-y look. It’s beauteous basal stuff. You’ll get the aforesaid acceptable of default apps that travel preinstalled connected each Android instrumentality that supports Google Play (Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive, etc.). 

Logitech’s efforts to fell the information that you’re utilizing an Android tablet don’t spell acold beyond the surface. For instance, it kicks you implicit to Google’s precise plain settings interface for much in-depth options, which is jarring. Instead of letting you get notifications, the handheld vibrates, but it hides them successful a mounting on the apical drawer of options called “Messages.” 

Given that it’s an Android device, it needs the latest updates to enactment secure. As mentioned before, it’s 2 versions of Android behind, which is frustrating. What’s disconcerting is however outdated its information patches are. It has the June 5th, 2022, information update, though it’s lagging further down with its Google Play strategy update from November 1st, 2021. Derek Perez, who handles communications for Logitech G, told The Verge that determination volition beryllium a Day One spot that addresses this.

The G Cloud Gaming Handheld is designed to watercourse games from the cloud, but I couldn’t defy installing the Android mentation of Fortnite, 1 of the world’s astir fashionable games, to spot however it would run. It ended up taking an hr to motorboat into a circular due to the fact that it was truthful dilatory astatine applying an update. Once in-game, the graphics defaulted to mean settings, capped astatine 30 frames per second. It ran acold worse than it does done the unreality with a mediocre Wi-Fi connection. Genshin Impact could astatine slightest tally astatine a steady-ish 25 frames per second, but it was a subpar ocular experience, too, and it didn’t admit the handheld’s dedicated controls.

Cloud gaming is arsenic bully arsenic the Wi-Fi connection

Gaming show is importantly amended portion streaming from the cloud, but you’ll request a reasonably beardown and reliable 5GHz Wi-Fi connection. I mostly played the G Cloud Gaming Handheld astatine location astir 10 feet distant from a Google Nest Wifi router successful enactment of sight. My net transportation greatly exceeds the requirements (226Mbps download, 23Mbps upload), though I inactive experienced occasional blips successful the representation quality. But for the astir part, I had a large time. Xbox Cloud Gaming boots into games quickly, and it felt similar I was playing a portable Xbox console.

Nvidia GeForce Now requires a download velocity of astatine slightest 15Mbps to watercourse games with the escaped tier oregon 25Mbps for the 1080p / 60fps tier that costs $9.99 per month. Plus, you request debased latency betwixt you and the closest information center. (You tin tally a web trial by making a escaped relationship and installing the app connected immoderate supported platform.) Microsoft says you tin play games connected Xbox Cloud Gaming with a 5GHz Wi-Fi transportation of 7Mbps oregon higher. If you person a information cap, you should cognize that GeForce Now’s automatic prime streaming mode uses astir 6GB of information per hr of gameplay.

Out of curiosity, I tried to play Slime Rancher 2 portion the handheld was connected to my phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot, which itself was getting a beardown 5G awesome successful little Manhattan. The ocular fidelity looked fantastic, though the latency was drastically worse than erstwhile I utilized my at-home Wi-Fi network. This mightiness dependable obvious, but you astir apt shouldn’t expect to play fast-paced games oregon multiplayer titles implicit a hotspot.

Even erstwhile net conditions were perfect, the quirky interior workings of virtualized unreality crippled instances sometimes go exposed. Some PC games, similar Cyberpunk 2077, volition necessitate you to button-press done a clump of prelaunch windows. I’ve had Nvidia GeForce Now bent erstwhile it’s trying to footwear a crippled from Steam. It spun up a virtual gaming PC moving Steam Big Picture mode, but I had to pat the maximize fastener connected a minimized model earlier I could proceed with the game. I don’t deliberation these issues are unsocial to this handheld, but immoderate radical mightiness get stuck successful a troubleshooting rut there. With GeForce Now, things whitethorn not spell perfectly immoderate of the time. Launching games from Xbox Cloud Gaming was acold little finicky. 

This handheld is constricted successful immoderate unacceptable ways fixed its $350 cost. It suffers from anemic hardware, and it’s not enjoyable to usage unless you’re connected to Wi-Fi. But erstwhile the conditions are right, and with services arsenic bully arsenic Xbox Cloud Gaming and GeForce Now, Logitech’s imaginativeness for a unreality gaming handheld makes sense. Fun games are inactive amusive to play here, and its plan improves connected the comfortableness of the Switch. So agelong arsenic you’re successful an umbrella of bully Wi-Fi, beingness with this gadget is beauteous good. 

But arsenic idiosyncratic who loves playing games everyplace I go, whether I’m astatine location oregon riding connected the train, I can’t judge Logitech’s handheld connected its presumption due to the fact that it refuses to enactment connected mine. $350 is conscionable excessively overmuch for a gadget with astir the aforesaid inferior — and limitations — arsenic a set-top streaming box.

Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge