Meh.
What is the target audience for this product? I don’t expect it can be used reasonably when travelling as it needs internet to work. Is it simply for when the TV is taken up by somebody else who really doesn’t want to watch their movies or tv series on a laptop like children perhaps?
Mostly yes, it’s for people who share a tv with others and don’t want to monopolize the TV just because the playstation is connected to it.
Yesterday they probably just played nintendo switch, now they can also play playstation in those situations.
After sitting 8+ hours a day in front of a laptop, I hate sitting more, even if it’s on a couch in front of the TV. Portal gives me the flexibility to game from whichever room I want, lying on my back, or however I feel like. Truly a needless luxury product, but this allows me to turn 30 mins phone/tablet doomscrolling on my back into 30 mins of progress in one of the games I barely have time to play. Well worth the price for me (so far), and I don’t even have kids, where my freetime would be even more scarce and valuable.
Don’t understand too. I’m just using my iPhone pro max/MacBook Pro + PlayStation remote play + AirPods Pro and it works perfectly.
I grabbed one yesterday, and love it so far. Seems strange to stream games from my PS5 a few meters away, but works very well in practice.
Have you ever streamed games from your PS5 prior to this? I’ve streamed on my PC and Phone, I honestly don’t see a reason to get a dedicated streaming device when my other stuff already does it.
Yes, tried it a few times:
-A few years ago I tried with I think Far Cry 5 on an iPad, but the delay made it barely playable (this experience made me disregard this option for years)
-Before I bought my Portal, I tried it again on the same iPad (but on a better wifi I have now), and it worked great with FC5 and many other games. This convinced me to take a leap of faith and buy it
Why do I need a dedicated device? Of course I don’t. I just like the convenience of picking up and playing without setup (e.g. needing to pair with controller), and also like to have an integrated but comfortable grip (meaning not a separate controller, but also not the small and less comfi grips of Steam Deck or Backbone).
If the deck OLED hadn’t been announced, it’s very likely I would have bought one of these.
Serious question: why? What can this thing do that you don’t get for a lot less money with the PlayStation remote play app on your phone and the official Backbone One controller?
Better ergonomics, no need to drain phone battery or get interrupted with notifications, bigger screen at a native aspect ratio, dual sense haptics. Also, easier pick up and play with no need to hook up your phone and put it in the controller. That last one may seem minor but when you only get 5-10 spurts to game in between family/motherly/fatherly duties, it matters. Considering the backbone is $100, I place a value of $100 more for those upgrades. It’s fine if others don’t, but that’s my reasoning on why I bought it and why I like it.
I have an iPhone mini. I can’t see remote play very well with it. My tablet is a larger iPad Pro, which is great for looking at, but terrible to play in bed when playing with a controller. Instead, I use a Retroid Pocket 3+ for remote play, which is more ideal than both, but is still small and un-ergonomic enough to cause strain and discomfort with longer sessions.
I was already looking at something like the Odin2 to get more screen space and a little more comfort from remote play, but then the Portal was announced for $100 less with a far bigger screen and probably the most ergonomic form of any handheld. (Not to mention full dualsense features.) For me the only real trade-off is that I would have to stick to my RP3+ for retro gaming, which already isn’t too bad. The Odin2 didn’t seem as such a good deal anymore, unless I specifically wanted to play more PS2 era games.
But when the Deck OLED got announced and the reviews came out, it immediately jumped to the top of my list. It has the screen size and comfort I need, but can also do everything my RP3+ can do waaaay better. The price is a bitter pill, but it’s not as high as other handheld PCs, and as someone who’s never had a gaming pc of any sort, I’m probably going to get a lot more value out of it than others.
If I didn’t have my OG deck, I would probably just have gotten the OLED. I picked up the portal and I love it. 1080p and bigger screen from the OG deck and official controls that feel much better. I still love my deck and that will be my travel king, but for couch dad gaming the portal is fantastic.
The lack of Bluetooth make this a no-go for me.
So I’ve tried many Bluetooth headsets with my phone using remote play and they all have significant delay making them unusable. I think that’s why they left it off. Even people who have been attaching Bluetooth receivers are having delay issues.
If Sony had included it and people experienced delay, the portal would have been reviewed more negatively. Even when Nintendo eventually added it, people have delay issues.
I will say if you are in home streaming and you have a USBC dongled headset for the PS5, you can leave the dongle in the PS5 and force the audio out to the headset.
