In a surprise announcement this morning, Xbox introduced a new handheld gaming device in partnership with Logitech. Titled the G CLOUD, it features a 1080p/60hz screen, 12-hour battery life, and comes with the Xbox Cloud Gaming app pinned on the home screen. It will launch on October 17th with a retail price of $349 in the US though it’s launching at a discount at $299.
Specs
According to the device’s official page on the Logitech site, the G CLOUD is using a Snapdragon 720G CPU with a rating up to 2.3GHZ. And to be clear, it is not limited to Xbox only games. It’s capable of connecting to other services such as GeForce NOW as well. Here are the official specs:
Compute
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G (SD720G)
- Octa-core CPU up to 2.3GHz
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 FHD (16:9 ratio)
Display
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 FHD (16:9 ratio)
- Type: IPS LCD
- Brightness: 450 nits typical
- Display Size: 7″ diagonal
- Fresh Rate:60 Hz
- Touch Enabled: multi-touch
Audio
- Stereo speaker, driven by high voltage smart amplifier providing clear playback
- Stereo microphone, featuring echo canceling and noise suppression with high quality codec and DSP
- 3.5mm stereo headphone/headset jack
- AUX output support
- Bluetooth® 5.1, with Qualcomm® aptXTM Adaptive support
- Digital USB-C headphone support
Sense Control and Feedback
- Linear Haptics
- 6-axis IMU sensor
- Ambient light sensor
WiFi
- Dual-band Wi-Fi radio, 2.4GHz and 5GHz
- 2 x 2 MIMO
- IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth
- Bluetooth 5.1
Battery
- Battery Type : Rechargeable Li-Polymer
- Number of Cells: 2 cells in parallel
- Battery Weight(g): 90
- Battery Watt Hours (Wh): 23.1
Expansion
- TF Card
Details
The statement from Xbox via Xbox Wire speaks to their desires with the G CLOUD along with the capability to use it for Remote Play which extends its functionality beyond just cloud gaming and to your entire Xbox library.
Handhelds are a natural next step in our cloud gaming evolution, and it’s great to see a world-class hardware leader like Logitech optimize Xbox Cloud Gaming for their new device. You can jump right in with ease, anywhere you are, and take advantage of the 16:9 full-screen display. With extended battery life, built-in Wi-Fi, and ergonomic controls, the Logitech G CLOUD will allow you to progress through campaigns or get online for a multiplayer session where it’s most convenient to you.
Getting started is easy: Once you boot up your Logitech G CLOUD, you’ll see the Xbox Cloud Gaming shortcut pinned right to the home screen. You can play hundreds of high-quality titles with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, including new games on day one from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda, as well as fantastic titles from our partners such as, The Gunk, PowerWash Simulator, and Tunic. You can also play Fortnite with your friends for free, no Game Pass subscription required.
Additionally, we’ve worked with Logitech to enable our Remote Play feature, also pinned as a shortcut to the home screen. Remote Play differs from Xbox Cloud Gaming by letting you stream your full Xbox library – going beyond titles in Xbox Game Pass – from your personal Xbox console to phones, tablets, and now handhelds.
Our Thoughts
This is an interesting device at an interesting price-point especially with the Steamdeck being such a popular options among the gaming community at the moment. At $349, it is not an inexpensive device and will set you back as much as a Switch OLED. However, it features no GPU and thus you cannot play any games locally on the device.
We’re unsure about the ergonomics and build quality though those details will bare themselves over time. For now, while we appreciate Xbox supporting more mobile gaming options, we’re not overly impressed with what’s been presented with the G CLOUD. We will provide more thoughts in the future!
