PlayStation Portal, two years later: good for everyone, now?

Few things, if any, played out like they usually do during the current generation of gaming consoles – but even in that context, the PlayStation Portal turned out to be something that absolutely no one saw coming. Sony’s “remote player” device was unveiled in May 2023 as “Project Q”… and yours truly will openly admit he was not all that impressed with it at first. If anything, it almost seemed like an over-engineered solution to a first-world problem: “Get this so you can play your PS5 games at home without sitting in front of a TV and your PS5”? Was that really the pitch for a $199 accessory sporting a rather divisive design?

It seemed, though, that Sony had done its homework: the PlayStation Portal is a very well put-together, easy-to-use, laser-focused product that’s designed for specific use cases – in the context of which it can be truly useful to certain types of PlayStation gamers. Yours truly acknowledged all of that in his own extensive review – published in February 2024, when the PS Portal was released in Europe – but he also pointed out that this device will only fully deliver as promised under favorable circumstances in terms of wireless connectivity, something consumers should take into account when considering a purchase.

Well, it’s been around two years since that review and yours truly has now lived with not just one, but three PlayStation Portal devices in his home, used many times a week by almost everyone in his family. A lot of things have changed in terms of what the PS Portal actually offers and how it performs in real-world use since February 2024, so maybe it’s time to take a better look at it now. Yours truly could not readily recommend it as a smart purchase to each and every PS5 owner back then. Can he do so now?

A device proving that software updates make a difference and gaming habits change

Before answering that question in full, yours truly should provide some context: after his initial review of the PlayStation Portal, he didn’t use it all that much due to (a) tons of work and (b) a few lingering issues with Remote Play, such as random split-second freezes during gameplay or the occasional disconnect from his PS5. Since almost every game yours truly wanted to play during spring and summer of 2024 was released on PC anyway, Sony’s PS Portal review unit spent some time in its protective case…until the 11-year-old boy in the family asked to try it out for a few days at the tail end of August.

The rest, as they say, is history: not only did said son start playing on the PS Portal almost daily, trying out different titles from yours truly’s PS5 library or the PS Plus Extra games list, but he eventually insisted on connecting it to his own PS5, so he could play with his school friends online when both TVs in the house were in use by others in the family. Now that would be a real test for the PlayStation Portal: Fortnite can be lag-sensitive at times… and 11-year-olds are not particularly patient with technical issues when overly excited (IYKYK). Amazingly enough, though, not once did the boy complain about input lag, problems in game control, delays or disconnects. So what had happened?

Well, apparently Sony happened: the company had released several system updates for the PS Portal between February 2024 and September 2024, gradually and silently ironing out the connectivity issues reported, making its device less unpredictable and more enjoyable as a result. Yours truly had a chance to test this out himself in early November 2024, as part of his review of the PS5 Pro… and the whole experience was indeed improved to the point of being practically trouble-free (on the same wireless home network no less). The PS Portal was now compelling enough to be used regularly, which is why he got a second, black one in spring 2025 as part of the excellent Midnight Black Collection of accessories for the PS5.

People who happen to have two children can probably imagine how things went down after that: the 9-year-old daughter – perfectly happy with her own PS5 up until that point – of course wanted a PlayStation Portal of her own now. The 11-year-old son pretty much confiscated Dad’s black model – it admittedly looks cooler – in order to give his white one to her, so they can play together. Long story short: Dad had to get a third PlayStation Portal – a black one, obviously – over the past holidays so he can use it whenever he needs to… which is how his home ended up with three PS Portal devices. No wonder Sony could not meet demand for this thing for the better part of a year, if anyone who owns a PS5 feels that he/she needs a PS Portal!

Kidding aside, it seems that Sony really was on to something with this product after all. Τhe “free up your TV” thing? Absolutely real: not only does a PlayStation Portal used elsewhere in the house means that the TV that PS5 is connected to is available for everyone, but the room itself is available too – hey, weekend afternoon naps are the best, don’t judge! A PS5 is quiet enough in operation to not bother anyone doing work, playing on another gaming system or watching something else in said room, so it’s a nice little bonus for a family whose members may want to do different things at different times.

What’s more, the PS Portal was – from Sony’s perspective – a smart move for another reason that becomes obvious once one witnesses it first-hand: yours truly’s kids simply play more on the PS5 than before, now that they have their PS Portal option available at any time. They haven’t stopped playing on the TVs their PS5s is connected to, so the PS Portal time was basically added to that (they play less with their iPads or iPhones now).

In other words, if Sony’s ulterior motive with the PlayStation Portal was to increase engagement with its console and keep players in its ecosystem – boosting spending beyond the cost of the device itself in the process – well, judging from his own case, yours truly would say the company pulled it off, no?

The turning point: playing games on the PS Portal without a PS5

So the PlayStation Portal proved to be an unexpected but undeniable hit with the kids of yours truly, as both are getting way more out of it than he initially anticipated. When it comes to himself, though, he will openly admit that it was actually something else that led to his using Sony’s device more often than before: the November 2025 system update that officially added the cloud streaming functionality the company had been offering in beta for about a year. That, as it turned out, was a literal game changer.

Having not tested cloud streaming himself on the PS Portal while in beta, yours truly did not know what to expect after reading a handful of mixed reports online – so he decided, out of sheer curiosity, to upgrade to PlayStation Plus Premium in order to run some tests as soon as the feature was officially released. Whether it was the final polishing of this functionality in terms of software or the recent upgrade of the wireless home network yours truly uses (3Gbps/1.5Gbps on Wi-Fi 7), he cannot say. What he can say is this: working with this particular network setup and hardware/software combination, the PS Portal truly delivers.

As it turns out, connected directly to Sony’s servers the PlayStation Portal somehow comes closer to the experience of a handheld system running games locally than when connected to the PS5 Pro. It sounds almost illogical – local networking should, in theory, have been faster for game streaming than hopping from node to node over the Internet – but, it the case of yours truly and his specific setup at least, it is absolutely true. There were no disconnects, skipped frames or obvious visual artifacts while playing – regardless of the time of day the tests were run – and yes, certain AAA games needed more time to load than on a PS5 Pro, but not annoyingly so.

In terms of both image quality and latency, almost all of the PS5 games yours truly tested over the last few months performed better through Sony’s servers and PS Plus Premium than through the PS5 Pro: Astro Bot, Tetris Effect Connected, Art of Rally, Hollow Knight, Sword of the Sea and Spider-man 2 were all smoothly playable and thoroughly enjoyable. Minimal issues were noticed every now and then, yes, but they did not spoil the overall experience of just playing these PS5 titles in the same familiar way.

Yours truly even challenged the service with the likes of Street Fighter VI or CYGNI – games that actually need low latency – and came away reasonably satisfied: not the same thing as playing them natively, of course, but close enough. Which is, in the vast majority of cases, what the PS Portal is all about.

A few other tests… plus a few things to keep in mind

Now, any article about the PlayStation Portal and hands-on impressions of its cloud streaming functionality would be incomplete without pointing out a few things. There’s the fact, for instance, that the device itself and a PS Plus Premium 12-month subscription cost close to what a base PS5 does when on sale – so one needs to provide a strong Wi-Fi home network in order to justify that cost and truly enjoy his/her favorite PS5 games on the PS Portal as intended. What’s more, quite a few PS5 games are not playable through cloud streaming – exceptions include popular titles like Gran Turismo 7, Minecraft and Diablo IV – while PS4 games are not playable at all, so players need to use Remote Play as a workaround in both cases.

There’s also the fact that different players tend to perceive latency in different ways, so they are not distracted by it in the same way when it does occur in games. Last but not least: certain types of titles, like FPS titles (where the whole screen can move very fast) or RTS/RPG games (where small visual elements and graphics detail can affect gameplay), still look and feel better when played on a big TV screen than on a small, handheld one. Having said all that, the PS Portal will serve most players well in most cases… as long as they don’t expect it to deliver the exact same big-screen experience. Based on what yours truly has personally observed or read online, most players don’t do that – which is probably why so many PS Portal owners seem happy with it.

In the context of extensively testing cloud streaming on the PS Portal yours truly tried a few other things too. Playing PS5 games through Sony’s servers over 5G, for instance, did not improve the overall experience in the same way the Wi-Fi home upgrade did. With an iPhone 16 Pro Max acting as a Wi-Fi hotspot the PS Portal did work over 5G, but the additional latency was felt in way more PS5 games, way more often. Certain non-twitch games are still playable that way, sure, but 5G is the kind of capricious, unreliable Internet connection – especially when moving around, like e.g. in a car – that’s not really a good fit for the PS Portal.

To be fair to Sony, the PlayStation Portal was not really designed to be used that way: it’s meant to be a Wi-Fi home device (even hotel Wi-Fi is often not good enough of a replacement). Something the company could do, though, so as to offer an alternative, is to release an update that would allow the PS Portal to make use of UBC-C to Ethernet adapters: those could provide the device with a much better connection anywhere a wired local network is readily available. Yours truly tried three different such adapters with no luck: they were not recognized by the PS Portal at all but – in theory – they could, as it is based on Android and his Sony Xperia is able to use all three adapters seamlessly. Something to consider for the next important system update, maybe?

Speaking of ways to improve the PS Portal experience through software updates, Sony does have a few options at its disposal. Support for Bluetooth audio, for instance, is something a lot of consumers have been asking for, as one can currently only enjoy wireless audio through PlayStation Link (necessitating the use of Sony compatible earbuds such as the Pulse Explore). Others are asking for higher bitrate support (which would improve image quality further), for easy multi-account management on the same device (it can be done now but the process is bothersome) or media app integration (for services such as YouTube or Netflix). There’s more, but whether Sony actually wants to exercise some of these options remains to be seen.

What could be next for the PlayStation Portal

The way Sony was able to iron out all the kinks and add important new functionality to the PS Portal through software updates alone is admirable, but there are several ways the overall experience could be further improved… if based on better hardware. That is probably the reason why a few rumors are currently making the rounds on the Web about a possible PlayStation Portal Pro: a new version of the PS Portal sporting (a) an OLED screen, (b) Wi-Fi 7 connectivity matching what is offered by the PS5 Pro and (c) a bigger battery, allowing for more playtime between charges. There are whispers of faster charging here and there too.

Sony has obviously not confirmed anything yet, but it does make sense for them to offer such a device at a higher price point – maybe around $249 or even $299 if the company feels that this version is demonstrably, considerably better on all fronts. People who are happy with the current PS Portal and can afford the upgrade will probably jump at the opportunity, as the overall user experience of a successor as described above would indeed be superior. The PS5 Pro proved there are enough PlayStation gamers out there that simply demand the best and can afford to have it – so, for them, a PS Portal Pro would be an easy purchase.

But these rumors may or may not turn out to be true. In the here and now, answering the initial question: can the PS Portal be recommended to all 90 million PS5 owners out there? The answer is the same as it ever was: no, not to all of them. Sony did a great job with it – in terms of both refining it over time and extending its functionality – but it’s not a magic device: it still needs very good Wi-Fi to provide the most reliable results and it’s still not the most effective way to play certain types of games. That hasn’t changed as it’s just the nature of game streaming and wireless networking: the quality of the former greatly depends on the effectiveness of the latter.

Having said that, the PS Portal can be easily recommended to way more people in February 2026 than back in February 2024: see, consumers that do have a high-quality wireless home network at their disposal will now be able to enjoy an excellent experience with it, as the initial issues have been addressed and performance is consistent, predictable and largely trouble-free. The PS Plus Premium-powered option of using Sony’s cloud infrastructure is also a huge bonus for those people, as Wi-Fi 5 is more than fast enough for server-side streaming if the home Wi-Fi signal is strong and reliable to begin with.

At the end of the day, the commercial success of the PS Portal speaks for itself: Sony was right in its assumption that gamers would be willing to make a few compromises if that meant they could play their favorite PS5 titles at any time without having to always sit in front of a TV. The PlayStation Portal, seemingly a weird bet at first, is now a legitimate option for playing PS5 games anywhere at home, with or without a PS5 being on all the time. It’s a proper part of the PlayStation ecosystem and – regardless of whether we’ll see an upgraded version of it or not – it’s definitely worth checking out by PS gamers enjoying a high-quality Wi-Fi connection at home. Not bad for a product initially looking like the solution to a first-world problem, no?