Game streaming is becoming an increasing focus of the big console competitors.
The likes of Xbox and Playstation both now have large online streaming presences where, for a monthly fee, you can game away without having a physical machine under your telly.
The problem has always been latency and internet speed quality.
And with the Logitech G Cloud we have a wonderful Android-based gaming handheld that is still held back by the technology outside of its control.
In essence, this is a decent tablet with a unique gaming software user interface and well built controller-based chassis.
It takes a lot of its design inspiration from Nintendo’s Switch console.
There’s a bright, colourful seven-inch full 1080p HD touchscreen with a 16:9 aspect ratio in the middle surrounded by all the normal triggers and buttons in all the expected places for a Mario fan.
White in design, it has a lovely weight to it – not too heavy, not too light – grippy on the back and feels like it’d survive a drop or two.
The controls themselves have haptic feedback, an in-built gyroscope, and re-mappable buttons so you can tweak how you play each game to your needs.
Thumb sticks in particular are nicely sensitive to help with fluid movement on-screen.
There seems to be plenty of battery under the hood too with 12 hours sessions before a need to USB-C plug-in and charge again.
There’s a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack and built-in stereo speakers to provide game audio.
The user interface can be switched from either a bog-standard tablet style to a much more gamified Logitech cloud gaming tile one.
There you can hook up to your paid-for Xbox Game Pass subscription NVIDIA GeForce NOW and Shadow, which effectively rents you a PC on-the-go without the need for the machine.
You can also download apps from the Google Play Store for cloud gaming, video, music, social media. All the usual tablet fare.
You can also stream games using Remote Play from your PC or Console using the Xbox app, which is arguably the best way to use this device as it minimises latency.
The image quality of the games through Cloud playing using a very fast 500GB fibre connection was excellent generally.
It didn’t look quite full HD to me but generally was very decent indeed.
And certain games fare better over cloud play, so the latest FC24 on Xbox felt fine to play and the footballers did everything I wanted them to with minimal difference between button pressing and movement on screen.
But first-person shooters like Halo Infinite, which rely so heavily on twitch-style shooting gameplay, did give a noticeable lag and I felt the stick movement was too slow in reacting.
Re-mapping buttons and tweaks can improve that but it’s never really quite the same as direct console play and that’s where Cloud Gaming in general currently sits in the landscape and why it hasn’t been mass adopted by players globally yet.
In time, the lag will reduce to near-zero and players will move on from physical boxes in their rooms.
But for now, with this issue we’re left with a well designed, lovely to hold gaming tablet that’s a bit too pricey for what it is at £330.
If you’re looking to get away from the telly and remote play your Xbox console games on a Switch-style handheld elsewhere in your home then it may well be worth a look.
But the game-over-cloud service sadly doesn’t quite justify the cost here at the moment.
VERDICT 3/5
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