At the end of the year, Sony has planned an interesting accessory to put under the tree: the PlayStation Portal. Before its launch this Wednesday, November 15, the press across the Atlantic had the opportunity to give their first impressions of this product. And overall, the experience seems to suffer from the concessions made by Sony.
Too many defects?
Announced in spring 2023, the PlayStation Portal appears as a screen to which a part of DualSense has been glued on each side and which allows you to play your PS5 in streaming. We are thus faced with an official Remote Play device, with all the advantages of the PlayStation 5 controller, marketed at €199 by Sony.
The American specialized press, which has just tested the beast, is however mixed about this semi-portable console. First of all, the quality of the 8-inch touchscreen is decent, but falls short of the performance of other mobile devices. PCMag states that “On paper [l’écran] is not impressive. Compared to the Switch OLED ($349.99), Razer Edge ($399.99), and many current phones, it’s even less impressive“.
Pointing out its price, DigitalTrends is a little more measured, still emphasizing that the panel is larger than those of the Switch OLED or the Steam Deck; and that even if “LCD isn’t the most exciting choice, it’s all you really need, considering you’re always watching games in reduced quality anyway“, estimates the site.
In terms of design, the format is worrying. “I couldn’t help but notice how flimsy the bottom corners of the screen were“, explains Engadget. The journalist further indicates that “Unlike the Switch, the Steam Deck or even the PlayStation Vita, nothing protects the lower part of the Portal screen from a sudden fall or crushing in a backpack“.
Sufficient strengths?
Now let’s talk about getting started with PlayStation Portal. Thanks to the format and characteristics of the DualSense, it seems to be flawless, judging by the different reactions.
“My hands and fingers were perfectly comfortable“, underlines Engadget. PCMag adds: “The controls are, as you would expect, excellent, as the Portal reuses hardware from an already fantastic controller“. Kotaku notes for its part that the handles are shorter than on the DualSense, thus requiring a little time to adapt.
In terms of connectivity, Sony seems to have taken particular care of its copy. “Over several days of testing, I only encountered one connection issue“, writes Kotaku. All this, of course, if the wifi network is efficient. Otherwise, the display quality, limited to 1080 at 60 Hz, will suffer.
Last point, autonomy. “I played for about six hours on a single charge and still have a bar of battery life left“, explains Kotaku. Long gaming sessions thus seem assured for the PlayStation Portal.
An affordable solution that could have been perfect
The conclusion of DigitalTrends underlines all the ambiguity of this new product from Sony: “For those who just want a dedicated way to easily use Remote Play and maintain DualSense functionality, the PlayStation Portal is highly recommendable at $200 […] It’s simply surprising how much compromise such a simple device can have. You definitely get what you pay for, but you’ll almost regret not paying a little more“.