we're on the record saying that the Logitech G Cloud a handheld console
designed exclusively for cloud gaming sounds pretty dumb the planning for this
must have started before they heard about steam deck holy good luck
Logitech so I was pretty surprised when Logitech slid into my DMs with an offer
to sponsor me to promote the device I mean I gave them the usual yeah I'm
interested wouldn't you logitech's check's always clear but I also told
them that I needed to experience it in person before we could move forward and
well I have and short answer it is good
enough to accept the sponsorship long answer we didn't accept the sponsorship
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PDQ deploy and inventory start your free trial now at pdq.com LTT Logitech pegged
me completely wrong here I don't hate cloud gaming and I especially don't hate
handheld cloud gaming I mean I was probably the single biggest advocate for
the original NVIDIA Shield outside of NVIDIA and its entire stick was that you
could use it to play Android games but it was at its best when you were
streaming AAA games over Wi-Fi from your desktop gaming rig it was pretty much
the spiritual predecessor to this thing and I absolutely loved it even back then
the latency was really impressive and while image quality lost due to video
compression is going to be a challenge for any streaming service game streaming
in particular the smaller the screen the less noticeable any blocking or motion
artifacts will be so game streaming to a handheld made and makes a ton of sense
the question then is whether this is the
right handheld big black elephant in the
room for the Logitech G cloud is of course the steam deck even though it
starts at only fifty dollars more valve's handheld packs so much more
Firepower that it can not only stream games from the cloud but even render
them locally without an internet connection it also boasts standout
features like haptic touchpads programmable grip buttons and a
consumer-friendly approach to user repair however after spending some time with
both of them I no longer agree with the other reviewers who say that the gcloud
should be completely ignored right out of the gate there's actually a lot that
Logitech did right here it's only marginally heavier than the OLED switch
from Nintendo with much better ergonomics thanks to having a
permanently attached controller and the quality and feel of the Plastics really
highlight logitech's Decades of experience designing human interface
devices the screen has a pleasing color profile
right out of the box and is rated at 450 nits which in practice is much brighter
than you will ever need indoors and I was also pleased to find things that I
used to take for granted but no longer do like a three and a half millimeter
headphone jack next to the bottom mounted USBC charging port and a Micro
SD expansion slot at the top next to the power switch and volume rocker
navigating the initial setup wizard then gave me a lot of confidence in the
buttons and the joysticks until abruptly
my overwhelmingly positive First Impressions ended during setup I was
given an unskippable prompt for 10 cents privacy policy and end user license
agreement it's probably not the worst Eula that I've ever signed and Logitech
isn't exactly hiding the partnership given that they've talked about it on
their blog but the only hint at tencent's involvement on the product
page itself is the subtle grammatical
and spelling errors that are sprinkled throughout so I feel like some of my
disappointment is Justified here and unfortunately that feeling carried
through to the interface it's not bad if
all you ever want to do is fire up one of the three pre-installed cloud gaming
apps GeForce now Xbox cloud or steam link all of this is likely going to feel
like nitpicking it's just that it's kind of obtuse you know like why are my
Android notifications under messages instead of pull down shade why does the
touchscreen work to interact with my photo gallery but not my Wi-Fi icon why
does it take a colossal 20 interactions
and entering my PIN to go from handheld
mode to regular Android tablet mode something that you will probably find
yourself needing to do at some point even if it's just to get access to the
back button and then while we're at it why the Sam heck does it not have a back
button In fairness to Logitech or realistically 10 cent put pretty much
every game under the sun uses face buttons for both confirm and for bag and
both opening and closing the Quick Settings overlay is intuitively handled
with the home button though I wouldn't recommend using the gcloud as an Android
gaming handheld anyway to which you might say what how can an Android Tablet
with a controller bolted to the side possibly be bad for gaming
oh it can to hit their aggressive 350 dollar price
point it is pretty clear that Logitech cut some Corners the Qualcomm Snapdragon
720g that powers the gcloud was targeted at Emerging Markets when it was
announced nearly three years ago and if
you attempt to run anything heavier than casual games you are going to be
extremely disappointed one of my personal favorite Android games bomb
squad is a total blast on this thing but
it's an ancient game I used to play it on my original Shield portable try to
play something like fortnite it was an absolute stuttery mess when I tried to
run it at Native resolution and that's even ignoring the current lack of proper
Gamepad detection and on-screen control mapping Logitech says they're working on
this but for now that doesn't help me and it was seriously awkward to jump
with the face buttons and then Fire by reaching over them to the touchscreen
since the right trigger wouldn't do anything furthermore while it's not
something that I explored in detail running Android console emulators is
snow walk in the park either according to Gary over at the fox it can easily
handle consoles from the 90s but even heavier PlayStation 2 and GameCube games
were a struggle for its weak SOC and he often find himself frustrated by poor
controller mapping agree with you 100 their men however there's one aspect of
Gary's excellent and detailed review that I take issue with and I alluded to
this before his recommendation to completely ignore the gcloud and buy a
steam deck instead let me explain Logitech has been careful to Market this
device very specifically while they
don't get in the way of running any Android app you want including playing
games or watching great behind the scenes content from our channels over on
Floatplane.com and they are apparently even discussing the possibility of
unlocking the bootloader other than to say that it runs Android
11 they make no mention of Android whatsoever on the product page it's for
running Cloud games and for that purpose it's really really good
like the steam deck it packs a large 7-inch display for a big screen portable
gaming experience but unlike the steam deck it's 1080p meaning that your
streamed games will end up looking noticeably sharper than your friend's
locally rendered games and actually even streamed games onto this team deck
because the screen resolution is so much lower and because all game rendering is
being done remotely the gcloud never gets loud or hot I can't stress enough
how much of a difference this makes I would describe the stereo speakers as
pretty darn solid but by far the best thing about them is that I can actually
hear them over the zero other noise that the system is making
it's the kind of quality life difference that might not get captured by a typical
review process which is all about your measurements and your FPS's but it makes
a big difference when you're actually living with the thing and so does the
form factor I love the steam deck as much as anyone for real I'm on the
record saying things like it'll revolutionize the console industry and
even the broader gaming industry but part of loving something is being
willing to be honest with it and steam deck is kind of cumbersome the size and
weight difference between these two devices is enough that if I had both of
them on my bedside table I know which one that I would grab to lie on the
couch and veg and it wouldn't be the steam deck the last major advantage for
the gcloud is battery life Logitech advertises 12 hours and as far as I can
tell they are selling themselves majorly short here
it over to the lab where at a screen brightness of 2 which is plenty bright
for indoors it managed five and a half to seven and a half hours in Apex
Legends mobile depending on the frame rate target so far so not that
impressive but then we set it up streaming playing bravery and greed on
G-Force now and we managed a whopping 15
hours of battery life that is another huge W for the gcloud
that goes beyond just bigger number better and into my battery anxiety just
disappears compared to my other handhelds of course that doesn't mean
that there's no room for improvement in what appears to be an effort to make the
gcloud more comfortable for children they crammed the face buttons so close
to the right thumbstick that I accidentally bump it constantly both in
games and in menus and that isn't even the thumbstick's
worst quality I think Logitech nailed the size of them they're kind of in
between the Nintendo switch and the full-size sticks on the deck but I
cannot emphasize enough how bad the dead
zones are whether we're talking racing or shooting games the absolute last
thing that you want to do on a console that already has anywhere from 50 to 100
plus milliseconds of extra input delay is ADD even more input delay it's not
too bad for All or Nothing inputs like in Hollow Knight but it makes fine
adjustments to aim or steering basically impossible if you're attempting anything
other than a casual playthrough I'm waiting to hear from Logitech whether
this is something they can fix in software we'll have the answer either overlaid or in the video description but
if it isn't I would recommend steering clear of the
gcloud until they've revised the hardware to address it which is a real
shame because that's my only real game breaker here though of course there is
another elephant in the room and that's the cost it's not only designed for use
alongside an existing gaming PC or
monthly cloud service both of which cost money but at the time of writing the
gcloud itself costs over eight times as
much as strapping a Razer Kishi to your phone I understand that that's not an
Apples to Apples comparison your phone's screen is a lot smaller and the gcloud
is Worlds more comfortable but your phone also doesn't turn into an
expensive paperweight if you want to take a break from your monthly subscriptions and use it for something
else making it a much more practical option
now I've seen people saying hey yeah I love the concept and if the price was a
hundred dollars I could totally justify it but 300 ain't happening the issue is
that the only decent Android tablets that I've seen for 100-ish dollars are
Amazon Fire tablets and those only exist because Amazon can sell them at a loss
and make up the difference with the prime subscriptions and other Revenue that they're assuming that they'll
generate Logitech enjoys no such luxury and while we have seen them discount the
gcloud there is no way it's going to make it that low because they need to
make money on every unit or they might as well just cancel the project which I
sincerely hope they don't there are some obvious bugs to resolve in the software
like this weird floating error or the inconsistent behavior of back in the
menus but overall I actually do like the
concept and with a bit more on device performance the combination of an
enormous catalog of cheap Android games and outstanding streaming performance
would make this thing a serious Contender for my money because compared
to buying my kids something like a switch now steam deck customers you guys know
who you are and this product isn't for
you but for other people the gcloud
really does bring something new and interesting to the table and I'm rooting
for it to be a success in the long term by the time this comes out it'll be too
late to do that Black Friday sponsorship deal but that's okay I had a lot of fun
working on this review I don't get to write much these days and I can probably
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