Expert rating
Benefits
- Comfortable in the hands
- Nice and clear screen
- Impressive gaming experience
The inconvenients
- Noticeable delay
- Requires a strong Wi-Fi connection
- No Wi-Fi 6 support
Our Verdict
The PlayStation Portal is a useless PS5 accessory, but one that you won’t want to live without once you buy it. With a good 8-inch 1080p screen and built-in control, it’s the best possible way to use remote play. Fast, precision-intensive titles are harder to play, but they’re great for when the TV is busy or you just want to stay in bed a little longer.
Sony has once again entered the handheld market, but it’s not with a sequel to the sadly neglected PlayStation Vita.
Instead, PlayStation Portal is entirely dependent on a PlayStation 5 at home. Portal is nothing more than a streaming machine for the existing Remote Play functionality. But is this necessarily a bad thing?
Surprisingly large and surprisingly comfortable
The first thing that strikes me about the Playstation Portal is its size. At 30cm, it’s about 6cm wider than a Nintendo Switch, but it’s also much deeper because the screen is wedged between a sort of extended version of the PS5’s usual DualSense controller.
All the niceties of the controller are intact, like the resistance in the shoulder buttons, the microphone, the gyroscope, the USB-C port for charging, and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Trackpad functions are available by touch on the screen. The only real difference, aside from the elongated shape, is that the joysticks are slightly smaller.
Foundry
The other thing that strikes me about PlayStation Portal is how comfortable it is. Thanks to the shape of the controller, it fits perfectly in my hands and all the buttons are as easy to access as they are comfortable to use.
At 529 grams, the Portal weighs almost twice as much as a regular Dualsense, but it doesn’t feel any heavier. Maybe even the opposite. A Nintendo Switch actually feels heavier in the hand, even though it weighs 200 grams less. Sony really nailed the weight distribution.
Limited connectivity
In terms of design, Sony has done most things right with PlayStation Portal.
However, how the game itself works is a big “it depends”. The PlayStation Portal doesn’t have any significant performance on its own – the only thing it can do in terms of gaming is stream gameplay from a PlayStation 5 through your router.
Having a good internet connection is therefore essential. Having an Ethernet cable connected to the PlayStation 5 console is also a benefit, but not a requirement. I use a three year old “gaming router” with Wi-Fi 6, and it works well.
Although I primarily used a wireless connection between the console and router, there were few streaming issues. Even when I connected remotely via my mobile phone’s 5G network, the gaming experience was generally smooth.
However, if someone at home is using the router for other intensive tasks, the experience quickly falls apart, especially if patches or entire games are downloaded to the PlayStation 5. On the other hand, gaming while streaming 4K movies on Netflix or music via Spotify did not significantly affect my gaming experience on Portal.
Foundry
Most things work, but not everything
However, it must be said that playing on PlayStation Portal is never as enjoyable as playing directly on the console. Under good conditions, disruptions leading to stuttering and lower resolution are rare, but not non-existent.
However, there is always a certain delay in control. It’s usually not big, but visible. Add to that graphical artifacts and other image degradation that are difficult to completely get rid of when streaming without the ability to buffer.
At the same time, streaming could have been better with relatively little effort. Unfortunately, Sony skimped on Wi-Fi 6 support, even though the PlayStation 5 has it. Additionally, there is no possibility of direct connection to the console, so the data must go through a router. This is a bad decision, as it prevents the sharp screen from showing its full potential.
Foundry
Despite the lack of a direct connection to the console, my gaming sessions with PlayStation Portal have been mostly painless. Among other things, I stood on the podium in semi-hard races in Gran Turismo 7, won matches in NHL 24, and completed day missions in Destiny 2.
Most types of games can simply be played on the PlayStation Portal. At the same time, it’s clear that games with calmer themes perform better on the device, while competitive online games that rely on quick reflexes and button presses don’t perform as well.
Add without subtracting
The most notable thing about the Playstation Portal is that it doesn’t do anything new or unique. This is a platform for the PlayStation 5’s Remote Play feature, a feature that can also be used on most reasonably new smartphones and tablets.
That said, PlayStation Portal is in a different league. There are no issues with the brackets and Bluetooth connection to the controller, no slow apps and no calls or messages at the wrong time. The Remote Play experience is simply better with a PlayStation Portal. The question is, is it £200/$200 nicer?
But if you want to be able to play when a family member has taken over the TV, have a premium gaming experience elsewhere in the house, or maybe you just don’t think there’s a need to turn on a great TV for a few casual titles, PlayStation Portal can be a perfect solution.
Foundry
Features
Product Name: Playstation Portal
Tested: December 2023
Maker:Sony
Display: 8-inch LCD, 1920 x 1080 pixels, 60 Hz, multitouch
Microphone: Yes
Connections: 1st USB-C headset, 3.5 mm
Wireless: Wifi 5, 802.11ac, Playstation Link (audio)
Other: Full Dualsense features
Battery life: Approximately four to six hours depending on brightness and volume
Size: Width 30 cm, height 11 cm
Weight: 529 grams
This article was originally published in Swedish on m3.se.
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