Sony has finally announced the price and release date for the PlayStation Portal.
The handheld console market is more saturated than ever. The Nintendo Switch arguably started the trend, with the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Pro all rearing their heads soon after.
But Sony has designed the PlayStation Plus to work a little differently; it won’t be able to run games natively and there will be no games available to download on the console. Instead, you will be able to stream games via the PlayStation 5 console over Wi-Fi, making it a pointless purchase for anyone who doesn’t own Sony’s latest console – in the same vein as the PlayStation VR 2.
We’re keeping a close eye on any news relating to this latest console, so make sure you keep scrolling to find a full breakdown of everything we know so far.
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Pricing and release date
Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation Portal will cost £199.99/$199.99/€219.99.
That’s pretty steep for a device that doesn’t have any powerful specs inside, relying on the strength of your Wi-Fi connection when it comes to performance.
But with the DualSense controller built into the device, including all of the key features such as haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, you are at least getting an experience that a smartphone and tablet can’t replicate.
There is now confirmation that the PlayStation Portal will launch on Wednesday the 15th of November 2023, meaning that you only need to wait a couple more months to try out the latest handheld.
Pre-orders of the PlayStation Portal can be made right now on the PlayStation Direct website if you want to get your hands on it as soon as it launches.
Specs
The PlayStation Portal doesn’t have a powerful chip inside, and so is incapable of running games natively – you’ll need to stream them via the PS5 instead.
That means the screen is the most important aspect here instead, and Sony has opted for a large 8-inch LCD panel with a 1080p resolution and 60Hz refresh rate. Some may well be disappointed that Sony has decided against using a more vivid OLED screen, but that would have upped the cost even further.
When looking at the PlayStation Portal, it looks like someone has snapped a DualSense controller in half and superglued each segment to either side. Remarkably, these controller pads pack in the technology as the proper DualSense controller, including adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.
A 3.5mm headphone jack is built into the PlayStation Portal, allowing you to hook up wired headphones. Controversially, there’s no Bluetooth connection included here. If you want to use wireless headphones, you’ll instead have to buy a headset with Sony’s new proprietary PlayStation Link wireless audio technology. That’s currently only available on headphones such as the upcoming Pulse Elite and Pulse Explore headphones.
There’s no word from Sony about battery life just yet, but CNET claims Sony is targeting the same stamina as the DualSense controller, which should be somewhere between 7 to 9 hours.
