Playstation Portal

It's very much just an accessory/companion akin to a fancy controller for the PS5 and will only see its value as that. It falls into a niche area of usage, but there are instances where someone may want the use of their console but not necessarily the primary display. Now whether that's worth 200 quid plus, is another story when there are other, albeit platform limited, options available.

The biggest selling point, and one which puts it well beyond another form of remote play is the controller. That is a huge pro in its favour. Of course the pessimist would argue a nasty bout of drift would be most problematic in such a device, but in its out and out remote functionality, there's potentially no substitute. Personally, I think the lack of WiFi 6e support as per the Quest 3 and Deck OLED is a bigger missed opportunity. Lot of congestion in the average house network nowadays, but as long as you're not expecting to be on top of twitch shooters, the ability to sit back with some single player adventure or 10mins of something here or there is appealing. Cloud gaming support would certainly give it another point or two in its favour, but whether that is a future feature remains to be seen. Excellent controller and an apparently excellent screen, while not going to grab the recent headlines like the Deck, at least sounds better than a cheap tablet fudging remote play with a limited controller.

Will have one to hand tomorrow to test out, but might not get to give it a proper go till later in the week. If anything it might re-energise the PS5 in my house, where it just gets less and less interest.

I'd say it will show up on Smyth's. If you search for it on their site the results show it, but when you click the link it doesn't bring up the page. To they either have no stock, stock coming, or it's a bug as they have it in the UK.

Had a little go with it tonight.

A surprisingly solid device in the hand, it gives off a good first impression. Setup relatively straight forward - charge, power on, connect to network, download a couple updates, sign in to PSN, select PS5 to connect to, reminder of how to connect when its on and what to do from rest, and after a pairing of a few seconds you're presented with the PS5's dash.

Looked absolutely terrible on first connect, but after disconnecting and waking up the Portal from sleep and reconnecting, it looked pin sharp.

Very good screen, not OLED obviously, but very bright with good colour reproduction. Some banding, as to expected with LCD, but acceptable. Then it's just a matter of using it just like the big one. Didn't put them side by side but feels as wide in the grasp as the Steam Deck, though with the seemingly smaller thumbsticks, I didn't find it as forgiving as the Valve device with large hands. Pop some caps on them and it should be an improvement.

Speakers seem quite tinny though especially if you're used to pumping the PS5 audio through a receiver. Obviously Sony are going to try to sell you their earbuds, and there is the audio jack so it's not the end of the world. Performance is nothing too revolutionary as Remote Play has been about for a bit, though it is slickly handled and feels the part with the dedicated controller. Only tried it with Spider-man 2 but seemed a more than acceptable way to play the game. Had a quick look at Astro's and that seemed to be having issues maintaining 60fps so have to take another look to see if it was a once off.

Definitely not going to be for everyone, and I'm not even sure I'd be getting appropriate use from it, but it does appear to do what it'd intended to.

Hey lads, quick question for the ones who have already tested it.. Is it possible to connect non-ps5 Bluetooth earbuds? Can you login into a party with them and talk with your friends?

They are on Amazon now

PlayStation Portal https://amzn.eu/d/5Zc0hqh

Re: Cloud gaming support

I got my dispatched email from Amazon. It's in the airport in Manchester and has cleared customs so fingers crossed it is in Dublin with An Post tonight and they should have it to me tomorrow.

I think the IGN review was telling. He was super sceptical and didn't see the point until he took it to a coffee shop with free wifi and just connected and played perfectly.

I fully expect cloud gaming to come to it. Sony just seems very cautious. I wonder how long until it is hacked and Xbox cloud is running on it :)

Edit: in the Irish customs system now

Stalking Smyths to hopefully get it through them, is there any stock trackers for this? Around PS5 launch I remember a few Twitter accounts were brilliant for following new stock drops.

I'm still waiting. I am tracking the postman and he is driving all over the place instead of to my house 😭.

The only thing holding me back from it is my less than average internet.

How are people with slower internet getting on performance wise?

I think people saw a rumoured handheld and hoped they were getting a vita 2. So that was definitely a negative start for it.

I guess Sony looked at the Vita and lack of third party support and thought that at least this option doesn't have that issue, it doesn't have to compete with the switch and the deck.

It does one job and it does it well. Add cloud gaming and it's pretty much in line with what MS have rumoured to have in the works for their handheld.

A few bits are a little annoying.

1. If you turn off the PS5 instead of putting it into Rest mode you are goosed. You can't get it back on. Unlike the normal controller that can wake the console the PS button on this just turns on the portal.

I think that's a big miss. It's okay if you are at home but imagine you bring it travelling and shut the PS5 down instead of rest mode (which I do all the time) it's rendered useless.

2. None of the media streams. It is blocked rather than not working. I tried opening Disney and it opened for a split second then the screen is blocked. Same for Netflix, prime, Spotify. It's essentially a second monitor so this seems pointless.

3. No display colour settings. You can make it brighter but not change any colour settings.

I rarely use rest mode, unless I'm downloading something in the background and I know I'll play it later that day/night. If I leave it in rest mode other than that I always turn off TV and stuff at the socket before going to bed and then my PS5 will give out to me the next day as if I p*ssed on the hard drive.

How much did you pay on amazon Germany. Looks like scalpers selling for 300+

This is a picture taken while playing WRC with the Portal held up against the TV. You can see a tiny delay. Literally a fraction of a second. But without the photo evidence I wouldn't notice it.

Spent a good 90 mins playing Alan Wake this morning and I'm loving this machine. It's just a lovely way to play. The screen is incredible. Great size and it handles blacks really well. But I think it is the comfort when playing. The deck can be a bit clunky. The switch controllers are too small but this doesn't feel like a compromise at all.

If they get the cloud up and running it's great value at €230.

Any news of stock? Facebook pages or the like

I wasn't going to get one, but I may have a situation where one would be very handy so I may pull the trigger once they become available. Been a while since something expected to flop has been such a success!