Logitech G Cloud

It’s time to accept that cloud gaming is the future of gaming. At least for some people and even though Stadia failed. But that group of people is becoming larger every year. For the past few weeks, I have been playing video games on a brand new device — the Logitech G Cloud. But my games weren’t actually running on Logitech’s gaming handheld. Instead, I relied on cloud computing service Shadow to run those games. And I have to say that this experience has completely changed how I feel about cloud gaming. Playing on the Logitech G Cloud with Shadow has been mostly a smooth experience. More importantly, I’ve had a ton of fun in the process. Image Credits: Romain Dillet / ZebethMedia An Android console designed for cloud gaming But first, what is the Logitech G Cloud? While you may be familiar with the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck, you may have never heard of the Logitech G Cloud. As you can see in the photos, Logitech’s device looks familiar if you own a Nintendo Switch a Steam Deck. It is essentially a 7-inch display surrounded by gamepad-like controls on each side of the display. But the comparison stops here as the Logitech G Cloud isn’t designed to run games natively. It runs Android apps and has mid-range specifications at best. Instead, the device has been created as a thin client to access cloud gaming services. That’s why it’s interesting to see that many gamers are just missing the point. For instance, this YouTube video titled “The G Stands For Garbage” mostly mentions emulation performance and Android games. Logitech is a peripheral manufacturer. And the Logitech G Cloud should be considered as such. A peripheral for cloud gaming services. A controller with a display. A physical extension of a server in a data center near you. Image Credits: Romain Dillet / ZebethMedia Now that we have defined the expectations more clearly, I can safely say that Logitech delivers nicely on its original premise. The device feels great in your hand thanks to textured, rounded grips. It feels sturdy but it’s not too heavy. In my experience playing Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Rocket League, Hitman 3 or Celeste, the buttons work well. Logitech has chosen the Xbox gamepad layout with A/B/X/Y buttons, two analog joysticks, two analog triggers, two bumper buttons and haptic feedback. There are a handful of extra buttons to get back home or launch the Xbox overlay menu when you’re playing a game on Xbox Cloud Gaming. The Logitech G Cloud weighs 463g — that’s roughly 30% lighter than the Steam Deck and a bit heavier than a Nintendo Switch with Joy-Con controllers attached. I’ve had long gaming sessions without feeling any issues in my hands or forearms. Under the hood, the Logitech G Cloud sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G system on a chip with 4GB of RAM. It has 64GB of storage that you can expand with a microSD card. It supports WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1. There are also a 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo speakers and stereo microphones. On paper, you get just the right amount of computing power to run cloud gaming services, but nothing extra. But it’s a shame that Logitech didn’t choose WiFi 6 over WiFi 5 given how crucial latency and internet bandwidth are for cloud gaming. The USB-C port also doesn’t support video output, which means that you won’t be able to plug the device to a TV. The built-in display has a 1080p resolution, which is nice, but it doesn’t have a great viewing angle. So you have to be right in front of the device. All of this is fine and you tend to forget those details when you start playing. But my biggest complaint about the Logitech G Cloud is that it isn’t cheap — it costs $350. There are two ways to think about the pricing issue. Logitech products tend to be on the expensive side and it doesn’t seem too expensive when you compare the device to midrange smartphones. But the Nintendo Switch is cheaper and the Steam Deck is just slightly more expensive. The Logitech G Cloud runs Android 11 with a custom launcher that has been co-developed with Tencent. If you only need to go through your list of most recent apps or favorite apps, it works fine. But it’s still rough around the edges, especially in the settings and the notification menus. I hope Logitech will ship software updates to improve the launcher. If you accidentally bought the Logitech G Cloud to use it as an Android tablet, you can also disable the custom launcher entirely and get the default Android experience. Image Credits: Romain Dillet / ZebethMedia Running Shadow The Logitech G Cloud comes with a few pre-installed gaming apps, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now on the cloud gaming front, Steam Link and the Xbox app for remote play in case you own a gaming PC or an Xbox console already. You can also install any app you want from Google Play. For instance, I installed Shadow’s app to access their cloud computing service. If you are not familiar with Shadow, the French company has been working on a cloud computing service for gamers. People can pay a monthly subscription fee to access a full-fledged computer in a data center near them. It is a Windows instance, which means you can install whatever you want. Shadow starts at $29.99 per month for a machine with the equivalent of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. On October 26, Shadow is releasing a high-end configuration. For another $14.99 per month (so $44.98 per month in total), subscribers get an AMD EPYC 7543P CPU with 4 cores and 8 threads, 16GB of RAM and a recent GPU, such as an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 or the equivalent GPU in Nvidia’s professional GPU lineup, or a professional AMD Radeon GPU based on the RDNA