PlayStation Portal Review: Remote Play at a Worthwhile Premium

As platforms like the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck have continued to become hugely successful in recent years, I've been left hoping that Sony would take another crack at the handheld space. Despite being a huge failure on Sony's end, I thoroughly loved the PS Vita and felt like there was still a lot of room for improvement and growth if a new PlayStation handheld did ever release. Now, with the PlayStation Portal, my dreams have at least somewhat been realized, as Sony's newest accessory has at least partially scratched my itch to experience PlayStation games in my hands. 

Rather than play games natively, the PlayStation Portal is a dedicated Remote Play handheld that it means to work in tandem with Playstation 5 console. This means that upon booting the Portal up for the first time, you'll then tether the accessory to your own PS5 where you can then stream games that are already on your console over Wi-Fi to the platform. Remote Play on its own is nothing all that new as Sony has already allowed this functionality on phones, tablets, and computers for years. With this in mind, the Portal's $200 price tag is a steep one, especially since Remote Play is widely available in so many other ways. 

Despite coming in at a high price, Sony puts its best foot forward when it comes to the build of the Portal. Between its 8-inch LCD screen and split DualSense controllers, the Portal is of a very high quality and is quite comfortable to hold for prolonged spans of time. Even though it's pretty sizable, the PS Portal is relatively lightweight and never at any point felt cumbersome to me. 

It also cannot be understated just how nice it is to have DualSense controllers available to use in an on-the-go device of this manner. I've given Remote Play a shot in other ways over the years and my biggest complaint has always been that other controller options for smartphones, in particular, don't feel great. With Portal, this couldn't be further from the truth. Outside of some slightly smaller thumbsticks and the lack of a touchpad, the DualSense controller that comes with the Portal is exactly like one you'd use with the PS5. This even includes features such as haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers that have become synonymous with the DualSense. Over the past few years, I've loudly proclaimed that the DualSense is the best video game controller ever and its implementation here with the Portal is a huge selling point. 

There's also just a general ease of use that I didn't expect the PlayStation Portal to have. Once you turn the device on, all you have to do is press the X button once for it to begin connecting to your PS5. This connectivity phase takes anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds, but once done, you can begin accessing all avenues of your PS5 like you normally would. It's a really seamless process that I think best showcases what Remote Play is capable of to those who still haven't used the feature much. 

As you'd surely expect, though, the biggest drawback of the PlayStation Portal is that the further away you are from your PS5, the more difficult it's going to be to stream games. In my own experience, when it came to using the Portal in my house where my PS5 console also resides, I found next to no input lag. This was especially pleasing to me given that my personal PS5 isn't hardwired into my internet and is instead only connected via Wi-Fi. Although the resolution was clearly lower on the Portal's screen compared to what I'd view on my TV, I was able to play fast-paced action games like Final Fantasy XVI and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 without feeling like I was getting a drastically worsened gameplay experience. 

Whenever I was outside of my home, though, this didn't necessarily hold true. Input lag became a far bigger problem when I tried using the Portal away from my own house, and I even suffered some connectivity issues at times. It's hard to know if these errors were the result of simply using poor Wi-Fi (I don't believe I was) or if it was just the general limits of Remote Play. 

At the end of the day, this is kind of the big determining factor with the PlayStation Portal. If you feel like you have a strong enough internet connection at home or the other places that you might frequent, then I can't imagine you'd have many problems with the handheld. Otherwise, the Portal is a much harder sell. This is a platform that relies less on the functionality that Sony has directly put into it and is more about the internet infrastructure you might have. As such, I'd definitely encourage anyone even broadly interested in the Portal to run some internet speed tests beforehand to evaluate how it might work on your own networks. 

Beyond these potential internet struggles, I also cannot fathom why Bluetooth was not incorporated with the Portal. Despite being so common nowadays on just about every device, Bluetooth is nowhere to be found with the Portal, which greatly limits the way in which you can use audio devices. Even though there are built-in speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack, Sony clearly seems to be pushing its "PlayStation Link" tech strongly with its upcoming family of devices. 

To briefly explain, PlayStation Link is Sony's own equivalent of Bluetooth and is implemented with both the Portal and the upcoming Pulse Explore earbuds that are launching this December. With this in mind, it really looks like Sony is trying to push PlayStation fans to purchase these earbuds if they want a non-wired audio experience with the Portal. Still, I'm not sure why this perceived synergy between accessories had to come at the cost of Bluetooth being on the Portal at all. 

It's hard to broadly recommend the PlayStation Portal to those who might own a PS5 as it really is a device that is for a hyper-specific audience. If you're like me, though, and have been looking for a way to play PlayStation games while watching sports on TV or simply reclining in the comforts of your own bed, then I absolutely think you should consider snatching up the Portal. This is an accessory that I have loved using over the past week and see myself putting to use a whole lot more in the future. Even with a couple of caveats, the PlayStation Portal still shows that Sony is very much capable of creating some of the best handheld hardware around and leaves me ever-hopeful that a dedicated platform will re-emerge in the future. 

*A PlayStation Portal unit was provided by Sony for the purpose of this review.