Pre-Orders Go Live For The Logitech G Cloud Gaming Handheld

Earlier this year Logitech G made the surprise announcement that they had teamed up with Tencent and were entering the handheld gaming market. Whilst the announcement of the Logitech G Cloud came alongside a couple of renders, rumoured specs swirled around the internet for some weeks before being confirmed.

I must admit that when I first saw the Logitech’s announcement I was immediately reminded of the Panasonic Jungle. The Jungle was another surprise handheld from a large and well established company with no history in handhelds, teased back in 2010. The Jungle was canned before it ever made it to market. But if anyone had any doubts about the Cloud then put them to rest because pre-orders for the device are now live on the Logitech G website.

LOGITECH G CLOUD SPECS

The Cloud is powered by a Snapdragon 720G (benchmarks page) which is a mid-tier 64 bit SoC released by Qualcomm in 2020. It features 6 Cortex-A55 cores running at 1.8GHz and 2 Cortex-A76 cores at 2.3GHz. The GPU is an Adreno 618 GPU at 750MHz. Whilst the RAM configuration isn’t listed on the Logitech promo website, 4GB of LPDDR4 memory is listed amongst the specs here.

via notebookcheck.net

Whilst not as powerful as the Snapdragon 845 in the Ayn Odin, the 720G is a fairly capable chip that outshines many offerings from Chinese handheld manufacturers. Unverified Geekbench 5 scores below.

Logitech Cloud G Geekbench
image courtesy of Webandme

The Logitech G Cloud houses a 7″ IPS LCD in 16:9 configuration. It’s a full 1080p panel and is multi-touch capable, which is important given the software powering the device. A 6000mah battery provides up to 12 hours of gaming, depending on usage.

Full specs from the Logitech support page below.

Full Logitech G Cloud specs

CONTROLS AND IO

The usual set of controls including dual analogue, ABXY and a d-pad can be found on the front of the unit, and a L1/R1/L2/R2 configuration sit on top. The shoulder button config ticks a lot of boxes in that it is not only stacked, but the bottom 2 triggers are analogue. Also on the front of the unit it a “G” button, a home button and a pair of buttons described as L&R option buttons.

Logitech G Cloud Shoulder Buttons

The Cloud contains 64GB of internal UFS storage, and a microSD card expansion slot. A volume rocker button is placed next to the power switch on the top left side, and a 3.5mm headphone jack and USB-C charge port can be found on the bottom. The Logitech G Cloud also supports 5GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 5.1.

OS AND TARGET MARKET

The Cloud ships with Android 11, but it looks as though it will be far from a stock Android experience. The handheld is said to “require” a cloud subscription service such as Xbox Game Pass or GeForce Now to work “as intended”. What this (and the name) tells us is that the Cloud is definitely not being sold as a portable emulation machine, or indeed even an Android gaming device.

Logitech G Cloud Front and Bottom

How limiting this setup will be out of the box is unfolding via early video reviews on YouTube now. I would hope that it will be possible to do anything you could usually do on an Android machine with little fuss. One of the promo shots from amazon.com confirms that Google Play is included at the very least.

Google Play on the Logitech G Cloud Handheld

It does give me pause for thought though, especially given the price tag. As of yesterday there are preliminary review videos hitting YouTube so the next few weeks will be interesting. The likes of Ayn and even Aya are already pushing boundaries in terms of price/performance and build quality so I do wonder whether Logitech can compete with these in anything but name and reputation.

The Cloud is available to pre-order now for $300, but the official price will be $350 somewhere down the line.

14 thoughts on “Pre-Orders Go Live For The Logitech G Cloud Gaming Handheld”

  1. This handheld wins where so many others don’t even try… ergonomics. At least with the switch there are ergonomic after-market joycons and grips. Most handhelds don’t get any treatment like that.

    I have had a slew of small linux handhelds that are fun to tinker with, and the specs are great for loading up large libraries and optimizing my settings and launchers… but when it comes time to play games on them my hands can’t take it after a really short time.

    This may not have the specs of some other handhelds, but I look at the form factor as something refreshingly playable.

  2. I can see this failing and failing hard just like every single cloud service before it has. I will wait to buy one once these go on clearance at a steep fire sale discount after their cloud service fails so I can jail break it and run emulators and android games.

    • You seem to be failing at context. This device is not going to be some locked down piece of crap that you might get from the likes of Apple or Samsung. It’s clearly been shown to have the Google Play app and you can’t have that and NOT have the ability to install Android native games and emulators from the Play store.

      Next time, perhaps read the article and look at the picture BEFORE spouting off nonsense.

      • Source? There are many Android devices with Play Store installed that aren’t really capable of actually adding apps and games.

      • “Cloud is definitely not being sold as a portable emulation machine, or indeed even an Android gaming device.”

        As MK stated before, inclusion of Play Store is no guarantee that apps or games on the play store can be installed, it is running a custom version of Android, no doubt it will need to be jailbroken and a custom version of android just to run games and emulators right.

        I’ve read and re-read the article and cant find the NONSENSE im spouting off. You dont even own one, why get so worked up and angry over something you know even less than me about? I’m gonna wait for the firesale once this thing bombs like the other handhelds and cloud services have, or get bored of it and get the next hottest handheld that comes out, this handheld matters nothing to me. You Mad? of course you mad 😀

        • just install any emulator linux distro and forget about Android once and for ALL. No video drivers? whatever, forget Android, FORGET IT…and live happily.

  3. I want one of these, but NOT for the “Cloud-gaming” streaming feature. It looks like a very high quality Android gaming tablet with builtin controller functions. I want this for general Android computing and gaming and it looks like it’ll be excellent at it.

    • Yeah, but Logitech has an edge, their brand. As long as they deliver a device the quality of which is line with the rest of their product lineup, they will have unit that can compete very well in western markets.

      • Agreed. Though I’m definitely going to wait to see how “open” the operating system/boot loader is and wait for a price reduction, the fact that they are an actual brand in the US that will likely be available in an actual store with an actual enforceable warranty in case of defect has me at least looking.

Comments are closed.