Sony seems obsessed with ways to extend the PlayStation 5 experience beyond your TV. Earlier this year, I reviewed the PlayStation VR 2, an immersive tethered headset that can play PS5 games. The PlayStation Portal, available this week for $200, is a less radical, more affordable proposition. Take your PS5 into another room in your home, but in handheld streaming form.
I’ve had the chance to play with the Portal for the last few days, and though that’s not enough time for a full review, it’s enough to allow me to report that the controls are excellent but the streaming quality is hit or miss. I can also tell you that this thing is flat-out weird. Sony, a game company that made its own handheld consoles like the Vita once upon a time, now has something that looks like a standalone handheld but isn’t. The Portal can’t play games by itself. Instead it streams them from your PS5. Think of it like a PS5 controller that sprouted a screen in the middle.
Taking it out of the box for the first time, I thought it looked goofy. Clean, but goofy. The flat tabletlike display is sandwiched between two halves of a full game controller, with some swooping contour lines that are vintage Sony. The USB-C charging port is tucked underneath, like it’s hiding. It doesn’t look particularly portable. It’s awkwardly shaped and doesn’t have an included case. With its jutting grips, it’s sort of like a Sony Batarang. Then again, it’s not meant to leave your home.
Make sure you watch CNET’s video review by Sean Booker, too, full of additional observations.
The Portal next to a DualSense PS5 controller. Bigger, but with very similarly sized controls.
Controls make the Portal better than a Backbone
This is Sony’s answer to the Nintendo Wii U GamePad, which in case you’re unfamiliar, was also a way to play games in your home away from the TV screen. It had perfect video quality but needed to be close to the Wii U to work. The Portal can extend anywhere on your Wi-Fi network, but it streams games using the same Remote Play technology that already works with phones and tablets. Technically you could use it outside your home over Wi-Fi to stream in to your PS5, too, but it’s made to work most reliably on your home connection (that’s how I used it).
The Backbone One (bottom) is fine for a phone, but the PlayStation Portal (top) has better-feeling controls.
So why buy a Portal, then? After all, there are decent snap-on game controllers for phones like the Backbone One that work with PS Remote Play and can be portable PS5 players too. Well, so far, having played on a Backbone One, I can already tell you one major difference: Sony’s Portal has a far superior controller.
Watch this: PlayStation Portal Review
Controls are the reason the Portal feels fun. The grips, the buttons, the sticks — they all feel just like an actual DualSense for a PS5. There are haptics, and the triggers have the same force feedback. That makes a huge difference in how I play my games, and it’s why my teenage son doesn’t love devices like Backbone One for playing his own games. Most handheld options don’t feel the same as a standard controller. But the Portal does.
One note on haptics, though: they do feel different than a normal DualSense. The rumble motors get loud sometimes, and they feel less subtle to my hands on games I’ve played. Still, I’ve never felt haptics on a streaming-based handheld before, though.
Getting the Portal connected is pretty easy, but I ran into some streaming quality hiccups.
Streaming quality: Not always great
There’s a downside, judging from my early playtime so far. This isn’t the same buttery-smooth experience as playing on the actual PS5. The streaming frame rates and smoothness and overall gameplay varied quite a bit. Yes, it’s serviceable, and I’m playing on a prelaunch device, so the software may still improve, but so far the streaming quality has been inconsistent.
Probably the main use I’ll have for the Portal: finally, handheld Madden.
I went straight to Madden 24, downstairs, two floors below the PS5. For some reason, there aren’t any handhelds that do Madden (no Switch, no Steam Deck). I played a Jets-Raiders Sunday Night simulation, and I appreciated having all the haptics I expect for tackling and running. The Portal’s display, despite being 1080p and LCD, looked crisp. It’s 8 inches, which means text looks reasonably readable — a problem with some handhelds playing console or PC games, like Steam Deck. Once streaming ran for a bit, the graphics looked sharp and pretty vivid. However, the frame rate varied. I found that one play suddenly hiccuped, and I missed a tackle because of it.
My kid playing Gran Turismo 7. Crisp details, mixed frame rates.
Gran Turismo 7 and WipeOut Omega Collection were very playable on the Portal (and my kids got really into taking turns with it), but I had to turn controller-motion steering off on GT7. Motion controls seemed too laggy. The frame rate kept up enough to feel like I could play well, though I missed the more precise timing of being on the actual PS5.
Audio choices are limited
The speakers on the Portal are fine, but for headphones, you’ll either need to plug in something wired via the 3.5mm jack or use Sony’s proprietary Pulse earbuds or over-ear headphones for wireless connectivity. It’s annoying that regular Bluetooth audio isn’t supported.
I set up a pair of the Pulse Explore wireless buds sent along with the Portal, which arrive in December for $200. They’re chunky buds, and again, they use a proprietary wireless audio protocol called PlayStation Link to connect to the Portal, pairing with a single button-press (the Portal has its own button to do that initial setup). To play games on the PS5 directly, they use a USB dongle similar to PlayStation’s older Pulse headphones. They also double as regular Bluetooth earbuds, which I didn’t try. On the Portal, they’re serviceable and sound fine but not notably stellar to my AirPods Pro-spoiled ears.
The PlayStation Portal and Sony’s Pulse Explore earbuds, ready to be unboxed. Annoyingly, the Portal doesn’t support normal Bluetooth headphones.
Setup was easy, but some things are weird
Setting up the Portal is simple and doesn’t require plugging in to the PS5 at all to pair. I logged in via QR code to the PlayStation mobile app, found the local PS5, and I was connected. There are a few menu options on the Portal to control brightness and connection, but it’s a bare-bones sort of package.
One other weird part of Portal, and its biggest control downside, is how it tries to replicate the DualSense clickable touchpad. The Portal doesn’t have a touchpad at all and uses the touchscreen to simulate one. But I still haven’t figured out how to make that happen. On-screen glowing rectangles indicate possible interactions, but I haven’t made it work. I think it’s via tapping? I couldn’t call a quick time out in Madden because of it. Any PS5 game that leans heavily on the touchpad may feel really weird on Portal — just a warning.
The Portal’s connection animation. It needs to establish a link to the PS5 before playing.
Should you buy a PlayStation Portal?
I don’t have a definitive answer yet. Given that a Backbone One costs about $100 and a PS5 controller costs around $60, charging $200 for a screen-enabled Portal isn’t that crazy an upsell. But it’s also entirely unnecessary, and very niche. It really is a just remote streaming screen bonded with its own controls, which means it’s super specialized. The controls show promise, but the streaming functions make this feel more throttled, at least on my older home network, than a dedicated game handheld like a Steam Deck or even a Switch.
For a PS5 owner who craves a great portable for remote play, and has the budget, this may not be a weird buy at all. Still, it feels like an experimental product versus a truly optimized one. I’ve been using the Portal for only a few days now. I’ll follow up with a full review once I’ve spent more time with it and can further test streaming quality and battery life.
