What do you find wonky about PS Portal? I was recently thinking about getting one. It seems great for playing long RPGs like FF7. I have both Steam Deck and Switch. The Steam Deck runs out of battery in less than 2 hours if I'm playing a modern game, and the Switch I usually play on public trasport, doctor's offices, etc.
All of this is based on 40 of my 115 hours on FF7 Rebirth early this summer along with some Firewatch, Astro Bot and Doki Doki Lit Club in the past few months; and based on my own network (500 down, 20 up cable; WiFi 6 router) and my brothers network (800/100up fibre; WiFi 6e router), both of which are fast/modern equipment and have various things connected to them without issue.
The wonky:
1. The start up - the way it works is you turn on the Portal (from sleep, basically instant) and then you touch the screen to turn on your PS5 from sleep... which is where things can be hit or miss on how long it takes before you're in the game: from when you tap the screen to when you jump into the game, it can take as little as 20 seconds but up to 40 seconds.
2. The touch pad - there's basically no good option as to what/where they'd put this but it's on screen (on each side next to the joy sticks) and just feels out of place/unnatural but there's really no great alternatives as to where they'd put it.
3. Auto-sleep - putting your PS5 to sleep or shutting it down, from the Portal doesn't automatically put the Portal to sleep right away; it'll sleep after whatever you set the 'sleep after' to, which can be 30 sec to 5 min. You'd think it would just auto-sleep with the system since the Portal on it's own can't do anything...
4. Connecting to multiple PS5s (obviously not using them at the same time) - I took my Portal to my brother's home and figured the integration with his PS5 would be basically the same but it wasn't. I got it paired fine (even though it wasn't as intuitive as the first time connecting console) but it simply would not be able to wake my brother's PS5 (which was properly set up), even after looking up/trying various tips, even after waiting 2-3 minutes. The only way I got this to work was to manually turn on my brother's PS5 (by the button or via a DualSense) and then it would find it/connect/work fine.
The annoying:
1. Image quality/lag - even with a perfectly fine network (both mine and , it works fine 90% of the time but those 10% of the time when the game stutters/lags or image quality drops are annoying.
The mixed:
1. It's a just mirror - everything your PS5 shows on your TV, will display on your Portal (so anything your PS5 can do, the Portal can display). But, and this might be hoping for too much, it would have been cool if, for like co-op/MP games, it could just display something else on it's screen (player 2) vs on the TV (player 1). Or maybe for some other games, it could function as a secondary screen, kinda like the Wii U control pad.
The good:
1. Controls - basically the same as a standalone DualSense in every aspect, outside of the aforementioned touch pad thing.
2. Screen - when there aren't image issues, it's stunning
3. Immediate TV to Portal or vice versa - if your PS5 is already on, you can jump back and forth between the Portal and TV instantly since the PS5 is always feeding to your TV (regardless of whether you're using the Portal or not).
Honestly I'm not gonna say it's not worth getting, I just think it's a lot of first generational hardware issues. For $200, it's definitely a good value/useful device if you're someone who sometimes doesn't have access to your TV for gaming or like me, want to multi-watch (football on TV, game on Portal).
