Object of fantasies and rumors, the PlayStation Portal will, initially, be considered as a portable console under the name Project Q. It will often be mentioned alongside what will turn out to be the famous PS5 Slim and its removable drive. The machine was then seen for some time as being a sort of nomadic PS5 that you could take with you everywhere to enjoy Sony’s hits. But that’s not the case.
In fact, Sony describes its PlayStation Portal as a remote play device. Basically, a screen allowing you to enjoy Remote Play on your PS5 with maximum comfort. This then raises a question: what is it for at a time when certain mobile phones are largely sufficient and other very powerful machines, such as the Steam Deck or the ROG Ally, also make coffee?
There are two schools there. Those who will tell you that they were just waiting for that, a Sony branded peripheral perfectly designed to work in total symbiosis with the PS5, and the others, those who don’t really understand the point of the bike. For now, after having been able to try the beast, a machine sold for almost €220 all the same, we are rather divided between the two.
Beautiful like a heart
The PlayStation Portal is a very nice machine, there’s not much to complain about. Its handles which rest at each end of the central screen, opt for a design in line with that of the Dualsense of the PS5, no surprise therefore. The ergonomics are impeccable, we even have a little grip at the back to ensure that the creature is held in place. It must be said that the monster takes up space. Although it offers a relatively thin screen, it is still around thirty centimeters long (more than two Dualsense controllers) and a little less than 12 centimeters wide. Not bad at all for a portable device. No concessions were made regarding its ergonomics in the end. We have exactly the same buttons as on a classic Dualsense and we will even find the technical specificities of the latter, namely the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. The rendering is similar to that of classic controllers, so no surprise.
We literally have the equivalent of a large PS5 controller in our hands equipped with an 8-inch screen in the center to provide optimal gaming comfort. The panel offers nice Full HD 1080P up to 60fps. Clean and sufficient considering the size of the screen. Ultra reflective screen by the way, which isn’t great depending on where you’re playing. It is also tactile and will replace the central pad of the Dualsense on occasion. When you place your fingers, you will even see two small rectangles appear on the surface near the joysticks. It’s not very practical to reach, we’re not going to lie and above all, the screen marks very quickly. Watch out for fingerprints. It addresses the problem with brightness that can reach peaks that are more than sufficient to take your machine out in any environment. There is no way to manage it on the fly, however, you will have to go through the menus.
Union minimum
Overall anyway, the PS Portal is very limited. We just have enough to turn it on and manage the sound using buttons placed on the edge above the screen, slots for voice pickup (integrated microphone) and outgoing sound (small speakers ), but that’s all. In terms of connections, we have a jack for plugging in headphones and a USB-C port for charging. Note also that the cable provided is a double USB-C. It will need to be plugged directly into the front of your console for charging, or any similar port. By the way, there is nothing else provided in the packaging, not even a protective shell. You can’t even buy them on the official Sony website, nothing. We then ask ourselves a simple question: can the PlayStation Portal really be considered a nomad if we are not even given the means to take it with us in complete safety? Well…not really either.
Profile picture?
The connection-hungry PlayStation Portal?
Be careful, on paper, you can totally walk around with your PlayStation Portal and play it anywhere, but its technical limitations will quickly prove you otherwise unfortunately. It is important to clarify that the PlayStation Portal is just a screen combined with a PS5 controller. This means that it has absolutely no internal memory. So you can’t download anything to play offline. An internet connection is mandatory and this is only possible via WiFi. Note that there is no other way to connect to your console even when nearby.
To efficiently run the most, let’s say, demanding games, you need excellent WiFi in addition to ensuring that the PS5 is also on a stable network (wired is best) to hope to have good quality of image without any lag. I was able to try the console in different configurations:
- PS5 connected via Ethernet playing from the same nearby WiFi network ensuring I have very good WiFi.
- PlayStation 5 connected via Ethernet while playing from the same WiFi network, but trying to deliberately lose 1 or 2 connection bars by moving away.
- PS5 connected via Ethernet while playing outside the network (via connection sharing with a mobile phone and using a different network).
- Finally, I also tried everything, this time plugging the PS5 into a very solid WiFi network.
The results are clear, the PlayStation Portal requires not only a large connection (tested here on a fiber network 900mb/s download, 800mb/s upload), but also and above all foolproof stability.
Powerful and stable otherwise nothing
I’m already telling you, connecting your PS5 console to WiFi to play Remote Play behind it is not a good idea at all. Remote Play requires a lot of resources and slowdowns quickly occurred. Faster than normal.
When you put the console on a wired network, it’s a different story. If the WiFi connection you attach PlayStation Portal to is strong, it works pretty well. Note that on the other hand you also need a concrete connection here, the machine really pumps the connection even if you play “small games”. Definitely don’t expect to play God of War Ragnarok, Horizon, Spider-Man 2, or Alan Wake 2 if you’re not on a strong enough network.
Even when playing with a fiber connection and good WiFi at full power (connection at maximum and without oscillation) we find a way to experience slowdowns on games like Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2. Lags, but not only . On Alan Wake 2 for example, we were able to see disturbing image problems (appearance of black squares, jerky image, etc.). You really need to not disrupt the connection one iota. Having tested Remote Play on other media, the PlayStation Portal even seems a bit less flexible and doesn’t really support fluctuations. Perhaps to do with future updates to optimize all of this? Hard to know.
How to optimize your games on PlayStation Portal?
In the meantime, a simple solution works quite well for the moment: go to the options for games that are having a little trouble running and opt for performance modes, when possible. But I still had the right to some slowdowns, notably on Spider-Man 2 and Horizon Forbidden West. On the other hand, when everything works well, the result is very convincing. It runs wonderfully, the PlayStation Portal also makes no noise and offers optimal visual comfort thanks to its large screen. The machine is also equipped with rather decent speakers capable of reaching a good sound level, and even a good integrated microphone input.
A screen for Remote Play and nothing more
On the other hand, if there is one thing that annoys me, it is the impossibility of using Cloud Gaming. However, Sony is throwing itself into it head on. We recently had the right to a big addition to the PS Plus Premium subscription allowing most PS5 games to be streamed directly, with the price increase that goes with it. And yet, with PlayStation Portal, you will only be able to play games that are installed on your console. An error message will be displayed if you try to stream a game. So yeah, we guess it’s about connection and resources. The PS Portal already pumps out enough connections, we might not need to take advantage of it, but why not offer an app or something similar on the machine in this case? Which would have made it a serious competitor on the market. Unfortunately, this is only a very comfortable second screen, but it could have gone much further.