Logitech G Cloud Is an Excellent Handheld Hampered By Network Realities

The future of gaming is in the cloud, right? Logitech G Cloud is a well-designed, delightful-to-hold gaming handheld that proves the "future" part of that proposition. This solid-feeling mobile gaming device promises so much, and yet the quality of your gaming experience is utterly reliant on the network environment you're using it in.

The G Cloud is an Android 11 tablet with a special user interface for gamers. You can drop in and out of Gaming and Tablet mode fairly easily, which could be a boon for mobile gamers who want to play with a built-in controller. The Gaming Mode has a couple different visual themes (a dark and a light "gamer-style" look), while the Table Mode just looks like an Android device.

The software that comes bundled with the G Cloud includes GeForce Now, a sort of "play what you already own in one place" service that lets you play the Steam, Epic Games, Xbox, EA, and Ubisoft games you already own over the internet on GeForce Now's high-end PC hardware (for a price). There are also apps for Xbox Cloud Gaming, Steam Link (to play Steam games from your PC), and the Google Play Store so you can load mobile games or other apps onto your device.

Gorgeous, Functional Gaming Hardware

The hardware itself is luscious. It's a beautiful white with bright yellow accents, great-feeling analog sticks and buttons, and a 1080p screen that's pretty great-looking, even though it's not OLED like the latest Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. It's a bit bigger than the Switch but feels just as rigid and premium as Nintendo's offering. Maybe even a bit more since its control handholds are built in.

The device has no internals, so it's much slimmer than, say, the Steam Deck, and much lighter and more ergonomic to hold than the Switch, thanks to the curved hand pieces built into the device. It just feels great to hold and use. The touchscreen is responsive, too, which is great when you're tapping around in Tablet Mode or playing a game with touch controls.

The buttons are responsive and bouncy, laid out in an XBox-style configuration with letters on the right side buttons and a staggered layout for the dual joysticks. PlayStation uses a similar layout, only with horizontally aligned joysticks and shapes on the buttons, making it an easy translation when playing games from your PlayStation.

Accessing your PlayStation 5 is going to be a bit of a struggle, though there are workarounds. See, you can download PS Remote Play to the Logitech G Cloud, and it will likely connect to your PS5 like any other Android tablet or phone, but the buttons won't be recognized as a viable controller for your PlayStation.

You can even Bluetooth a Dualsense controller to the G Cloud, but it won't work via the PS Remote app. If you really want to play your PS5 games on your Logitech G Cloud device with controller support, you'll have to get an Android app like PSPlay and then do a couple of weird back-end things to get it to connect to your PS5. Once you do, however, it works as well as remote play does on any other device like your phone or tablet.

You can play games on the Android hardware that you can download from the Google Play Store, but they honestly don't play much better than the streamed games via Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now. Diablo Immortal played all right but still had some laggy glitches. Fortnite played natively, too, but had the same lag issues as the shooter did via Xbox Cloud, to be honest.

The Reality of the Network

The issue here isn't the design or the hardware or anything else. It's just the fact that this gaming handheld relies on Wi-Fi to stream games to your handheld. If you have the best mesh Wi-Fi in the world and fast internet, you might not see these issues, but it's likely that you will regardless. Network throughput is a tricky beast to begin with, and when you're looking at Wi-Fi on top of your own internet speed, you're likely asking for trouble.

Games that don't rely on twitch reactions fared most favorably, though there were still moments of lower-quality visuals and frozen characters while the network caught up. Using Steam Link and the aforementioned PSPlay app to play games from local PC and PS5 hardware was a little better, but still not 100%. The best playability, I found, was from Xbox Cloud gaming. Even though you have to pay GeForce Now for a high-end rig and on-demand access, the service can't guarantee your network's ability to deliver on its promise.

Playing games like Fortnite was hit or miss, depending on the platform I was streaming from, with the best gameplay happening when I was connected locally to my PS5. Even then, a laggy moment often meant the difference between shooting or being shot.

Price and Performance of the Logitech G Cloud

Compared to other handhelds on the market, Logitech's offering has a few things going for it. The PlayStation Portal, which only lets you play remotely on your PS5, is $199. The original Steam Deck, which avoids the streaming and network issues with gaming internals, starts at $399. Steam Deck competitor ROG Ally will run you $429.

Granted the latter two devices are handheld PCs with various output functions so you can play on your TV, and they don't rely on cloud gaming.

Still, the Logitech G Cloud can work as a PlayStation Remote Play device, an Xbox Cloud Gaming device, and a Steam Link device, all in one gadget. That makes Logitech's $299 price tag seem more worth it, with the caveat that if you don't like cloud gaming on your phone or tablet, you'll likely not love it here.

Ultimately, it's down to your Wi-Fi and your tolerance for new tech. Logitech has designed a killer screen with built-in controllers, and if that meets your gaming needs, the G Cloud is likely a gadget you'll want to check out.