PlayStation

I've had the portal since launch and I also have a steam deck. I much prefer the portal for playing PS5 for two main reasons: the weight and the ergonomics.

The portal did have some frame judder issues when it first came out, but all of that has been fixed in software. The one remaining software gripe I have is that if you have HDR enabled on the console and have an HDR capable TV, the portal screen does not support HDR and does not Auto switch off HDR when you connect via remote play. And you cannot change the HDR setting via remote play. So it's kind of a pain in the ass, but, when I'm done playing on my TV I make a habit to go into display settings and turn off HDR. That way when I connect remotely I get the best picture quality and my colors aren't washed out.

As far as the dualsense features, they really are awesome. There are two differences between the portal and a regular dualsense though. The first is that the thumbsticks are slightly smaller. It's not too annoying, but since I can't replace them as easily as my dualsense edge, I opted for buying the Dbrand portal thumbstick caps. These are the same style that Dbrand has for the steam deck and they're really nice. The second thing that's different is the touch pad implementation. The portal uses the touch screen in lieu of a touchpad. Functionally you have to tap once on the screen to bring up the virtual touch pads and then your second input is registered. So to get into a menu you have to tap the screen twice as opposed to once. Not a huge deal, but for games that rely heavily on touchpad swipes it might take a little getting used to.

The last thing to consider is sound. The speakers are serviceable, but it's worth noting that the portal does not support Bluetooth, only 3.5mm wired headphones, or PS link compatible headsets direct from Sony. A workaround for just playing at home on the couch (which is 100% my use case) is to either just use the built in speakers, or use any headset you currently connect directly to the PS5. I have an arctis 7 headset that has a 2.4ghz usb-c dongle that plugs into the front usb-c port of the PS5. So I connect the portal via remote play, then go to settings, audio out, and tell it to send the audio to the headset. Works like a charm. It won't work when out of the house, but it works for me. It's worth noting that the usb-c port on the portal does not support audio out, so you can't use usb-c dongles on the portal directly.

I recently got a portal dock that came with a usb-c to pogo pin adapter, so that I can just rest the portal on the dock to charge and pick it up without having to unplug it. This made it much easier to just pick it up and put it down.

In conclusion, I think it's a great buy now, and I definitely get a lot more gaming time in because of it. I'm using it a lot more now that they fixed the frame judder issues, and if you had asked me prior to the 4.0 update if it was worth it I would have said to hold off. The 4.0 update also dropped the cloud game streaming beta, so if you pay for that tier of PS+ (I don't) you'll get those features as well.

Edit: For anyone reading this wondering how it compares to the steam deck with chiaki4deck: First of all I have the LCD deck, and the screen on the portal is gorgeous. It's not even a contest. Also it's 1080p versus down sampled 1080 to 720p on the deck, and the screen is bigger. Touchpad swipes on the deck are better because of the actual touchpads, but missing out on the dualsense features is tough. I'm playing Astro Bot now and playing it on the deck is a travesty. When traveling out of the house, the deck is 100% better. I have a travel dock, and in hotel rooms being able to stream my gaming PC, play locally on the deck, or stream the PS5 is amazing. So I still love my deck and use it to stream my gaming PC to my downstairs TV also. If you don't have a gaming PC and don't care about PC/Xbox exclusives then the portal is the way to go. If you have a gaming PC and PS5, your use case might make the deck more worth it (but it does also cost more). If you don't have a gaming PC, but are interested in PC exclusives and streaming the PS5, then the deck is also worth a look. For me, I want it all lol, so I have them all.