PlayStation Portal Hands On Impressions and Where to Buy in Australia
by #AI [2.0] January 31, 2024 · Automatic / Legacy 2
Though I still mourn the early death of the handheld ironically named Vita, when the PlayStation Portal was announced, I found myself ready to love again. We can chalk some of that up to me just being a sucker for a sexy screen, regardless of who makes it. Also, because I’ve been a long-time admirer of Sony’s diminutive hardware designs ever since the PocketStation. And that launch PSP I bought for Riiiidge Racer.
While the Portal’s form suggests it should be tightly grouped with its PS-predecessors, closer comparison reveals its function is more remote. Literally. This is a second screen for your PS5, rigidly and specifically. A TV-freeing companion piece.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with this impressive bit of kit and have some observations to impart. That said, we’ll dive into those deeper thoughts after I detail some prices for you “mind’s-made-up” types. Click here to skip all that window shopping.
Table of Contents
Where to Buy PS Portal in Australia
- See at Big W – $329
- See at Sony – $329.95
- See at JB Hi-Fi – $329
- See at Dick Smith – $329
- See at Harvey Norman – $328
What is the PS Portal? – Hands On Impressions
If you wish to start gaming metres away from your PS5—or still close because it’s just your telly that’s being hogged—configuring a Portal to achieve this is easy. At least it will be once you’ve gone through about 15 minutes of first-use device updating rigmarole.
During that process of relatively small download files but long install waits, you get your first hint as to how little actual horsepower this device has. It’s a show-er, not a do-er. Those beefy innards of your PS5 are still handling all the heavy lifting. The Portal is an expensive paperweight without one.
Once you’re all up to current version firmware, there’s a short process to pair your PS devices to one another, effectively using your Wi-Fi router as the fulcrum between them. If you want to give your Wi-Fi waves a reprieve by having fewer connected devices or you want the superior stability of a wired connection, you have the option to use a Cat6 cable to link your router to the PS5.
Those beefy innards of your PS5 are still handling all the heavy lifting. Whichever way you go, the next step is tweaking a few of the PS5’s Remote Play, Power Saving, and Wake From Rest Mode options to put your PS5 in a state of cat-like readiness to chat with the Portal. How that conversation goes down: you turn the Portal on with its own power button, tap an on-screen Connect prompt, wait five seconds, and then you’ll dive through a literal (on-screen, graphical) portal to “emerge onto” your PS5’s dashboard.
It’s all needlessly performative and purple. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t tickle me. Every. Single. Time.
Before we get into performance, here are some observations that stuck out as things I hadn’t considered going in, starting with weight and width. Very obviously, this is a DualSense sandwiched on either side of a gorgeous 8-inch (60 FPS @ 1080p) LCD, so you’re gonna notice some extra heft. I came straight from the 325 gram Edge Controller, so the 529 here was something I quickly accepted and forgot about.
When it comes to horizontal girth, however, I did notice that gyro aiming is only 50 percent useful to me now. Pivoting this unit vertically to turn a centre-mass shot into a blowhole installation feels fine; big, horizontal twists to sweep across targets are quite problematic, wrist-wise. That said, testing the latter did make me appreciate the wide viewing angle of this screen when it’s at weird angles.
Horizontal twists to sweep across targets are quite problematic, wrist-wise. Conversely, there are also unexpected pluses to being a wide load. The PS Portal’s haptics feel more pronounced for me. On a normal DualSense, you can subtly feel the left and right “channels” of feedback, but when you separate those two hemispheres by an extra 20 centimetres, well, you really do notice and appreciate the flavours of east and west.
One other unexpected benefit is the increased relevancy of the DualSense LED lights. Novel at best and gimmicky at worst, the lights on the DualSense and DualShock 4 were nice-to-haves for me. Showing me health in ever-changing chroma form is kinda cool, but I didn’t ever play looking down at my controller. My dad does that when he’s trying to find “which one Square is” in Lawn Mowing Simulator.
Thanks to the Portal, you can now colour me Impressed Indigo with every single developer who took the time to include cool LED functionality. These dual strips are right in your face now. My performance tests involved replaying the toughest attempted lynchings Resi 4 has—being reduced to “pulsing red health” put me on the edge of my seat like never before.
Speaking of running things down to the red and then death, on average I managed to get 4.5 hours of battery life from the Portal. That was at a reasonable 50% speaker volume and cranked to full brightness, smashing out some Tekken 8, Spidey 2, and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. You can delay the need to reach for that USB-C charge cable if you’re willing to part with haptics, trigger effects, lights, and some brightness.
Does the Portal perform well? Your mileage is going to vary h-u-g-e-l-y here, depending on how emotional your Wi-Fi setup is and what you’re trying to ask of this handheld in terms of router distance and physical barriers between.
For me, I was mighty impressed with the near-perfect experience I got in a variety of positions around my…uh, uniquely designed house. You see, when they made this slanty shanty, it was a single-storey kit home, but the previous owner decided to ante it up to two later on. Their solution: lift the existing house and concrete slab up on stilts and slap in a new level underneath with bricks.
Thanks to the Portal, you can now colour me Impressed Indigo. Boring story short, I have a way cooler micro-climate downstairs that’s better suited to housing a PS5 and router, but The Big TV and comfy bedrooms must reside upstairs. The challenge for my PS Portal, then, is to beam its gaming goodness up through concrete and metal girders to a few various rooms within the 15 metre range 5 Ghz Wi-Fi band prefers.
The rooms directly above the router had brilliant performance, with no resolution drops to 720p and only the very minor latency that’s inherent in PlayStation Link Remote Play. The bedrooms nearing the 12-metre mark exhibited the odd problematic wave of “artifacting mist” that would wash across the visuals, plus there’d be some occasional waterlogging to the controls. Typically, when somebody walked past in the hallway or turned on the microwave at the other end of my abode.
For the record, Sony expects a 5 Mbps minimum connection from you, but the best case is 15 Mbps and up. That feels pretty accurate to me. I’ve yet to take my Portal on the road and connect it back home via (9 times out of 10 expensive but still crappy) hotel Wi-Fi, however, my learned US colleague tells me a roadblock pops up due to the Portal lacking a browser for those sorts of log-ins.
Sony expects a 5 Mbps minimum connection from you, but the best case is 15 Mbps. Though I went in sceptical about how well the Portal could work in this misplanned madhouse of mine, only to be shocked by its viability, some reservations exist. I would happily play most of my games library on this sexy-looking sidekick, beyond some very high-stakes diversions that I couldn’t leave to control latency chance.
Ranked matches in Tekken 8? No. Roguelike runs in ‘No Return’ TLoU 2 Remastered? Not unless I’m desperate or have moved all the requisite hardware into a single-room, line-of-sight affair. More chill gaming experiences? Me and my Portal are always up for a playdate there.
Aside from those performance precautions and a not-inexpensive price of entry, PlayStation Portal delivered the goods for me. This is indeed a great device that represents the best and most authentic-feeling hardware solution for PlayStation Remote Play.
PS Portal Videos
Adam Mathew is a deals expert who owns four PSPs and just as many PS Vitas. You could say he appreciates a good handheld.
Author: Adam Mathew. [Source Link (*), IGN All]
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