PlayStation Portal battery life: here's how long Sony's PS5 handheld lasts

According to a recent hands-on by CNET, the PlayStation Portal battery life is expected to last between seven to nine hours.

[eagle21]

7 to 9 hours is solid! :)

[Cacabunga]

Doesn’t run natively but still good.. bottleneck will only be connectivity and streaming speed

[Babadook7]

"7-9 hours".

Yeah that seems like another positive.

[1nsomniac]

…”another” positive. I see what you did there.

But yes that’s fairly pretty good news.

[1nsomniac]

I’m not trying to be negative there. That should be “pretty good news” not “fairly pretty good news” won’t let me edit it now.

I would suggest that may be with certain features disabled though. Some games are excessive with the haptics which I guess would hammer the battery in these as much as it does with the standard pads.

[TQQ]

That's really good actually, better than my phone and my 10' tablet just watching YouTube or Twitch.

[Seraphim]

that's a pretty massive tablet you have there.

[gold_drake]

oh wow, i expected it to be way less.

nice, cant wait :)

[Abear21]

It thought 2-4 hours

[SwissCheese]

Given this is just a streaming device, that's pretty low compared to my cell. But I guess most gaming sessions are shorter than that.

[Profchaos]

Try streaming games to your mobile phone for that long and see how it goes I think you'll find with a decent screen brightness most phones would only get 3 to 6 hours max.
My fold 3 would only go about 3 hours tbh

[EvertonFC]

Most.phones wouldn't even do 3 hours imo, I used 12% in about 20mins using remote play while letting my nephew and niece play "Peppa pig and paw patrol.
I imagine it's even less playing a more gfx intensive game.

[EvertonFC]

A mobile last about 2 hours when playing a console game, plus it feels like it's gonna melt in you're hand.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

Your phone can definitely NOT stream games for that long. Pls stop lying.
It will even overheat while doing so.
That's because phones don't like intensive usage.

[SwissCheese]

My iPhone can stream for about 10-15 hours, depending on the app.

[Babadook7]

The only relevant app would be the remote play app.

[0hMyGandhi]

what game in particular are you getting 15 hours of battery life playing?

[Nitrowolf2]

You should be asking Swiss what phone I stead of the game, that'll tell you more

Mind you, his phone also doesn't have adaptive triggers and haptics on the scale of this too

[Vits]

Pretty similar to the Abxylute, but far lower than the Logitech G-Cloud battery life.

But given Sony's recent track record, it's really good and depending on how the battery is accommodated inside of it we might have another Wii U Gamepad situation where a newer, larger battery can be used.

[Babadook7]

Comparing to the Logitech G-Cloud, that would be 12hrs vs 9hrs. And considering this has haptic feedback built in - 3 hours less is not far less.

[Vits]

That is a 25% decrease. If you don't consider that far less, I have a bridge to sell you.

As for it having haptic feedback, I'm assuming that this 9 hours is with it on. But it's also not considering that the G-Cloud has its own set of internal hardware to power as well that at least right now appears to be leagues above what powers this Portal.

[Babadook7]

“That is a 25% decrease”

Exactly. 25% less is not far less no matter how you spin in. Especially with a bigger screen and quality haptics and resistive triggers being turned on. You’d be crazy to sacrifice those features for such a small increase in battery life.

Also you didn’t say Abxylute was far less battery than portal even though at 6 hrs tested, it would have 33% less battery life.

That being said I hope you didn’t pay too much for your “bridge”. You’re stuck with it.

[Eonjay]

Kinda feels like the best case scenario tbh. Everyone should be pretty happy with that.

[PlanetariumPictures]

7-9 is great...but i bet that means its really 3-4 with the brightness up and headphones connected...

[jznrpg]

When I watch shows on my phone in bed I turn the brightness down all the way and that’s where I’ll probably play this the most. On the couch it will probably be on medium settings. The only time I use any device on max brightness is outside but I don’t use devices outside very often besides making phone calls so I don’t think max brightness should be an issue.

[Miacosa]

This article is based on the reveal coverage on 8/23/23 and should not be taken as new information. CNET stated back then that no definitive battery life was given but Sony is targeting something similar to the DualSense controller's, which is typically around seven to nine hours.

[Babadook7]

Correct. So the article linked here is pretty much hearsay. Hopefully Sony gets the battery life up to the same length as the DualSense.

[porkChop]

It's streaming so it isn't using high-powered hardware. 7-9 hours is probably fine for most people, though I do wonder how the battery holds up with the brightness and stuff cranked up.

[VincentVanBro]

Looking really good, just wish it had an OLED though

[jznrpg]

OLED is nice but on smaller screens the benefits isn’t as noticeable imo.
On TVs especially 65”+ is where OLED really shines “or doesn’t shine as the blacks look great since they shut off the pixel”
It would be nice but probably raises the price a bit.
Maybe they make a refresh with OLED down the road.

[VincentVanBro]

I'd happily pay more, and while I respect your opinion, I fully disagree. The jump from Switch LCD to Switch OLED was absolutely amazing, especially in bed at night.

[Rimeskeem]

Thinking about getting one for work, lots of downtime for me. Nice it lasts about 8 hours, or a day of work too 😂

[jwillj2k4]

Why do I have a feeling this shit is gonna sell really really well.. for all the bad mouthing and bad press it got I can see everyone having it just lying around somewhere

[__SteakDeck__]

Just like when people said Dualsense Edge was too expensive, yet it’s selling well. You can never 100% always listen to what the Internet says. Sometimes what people say on the Internet is different from what people in the real word think.

[Profchaos]

Sony knows this stuff is niche and set targets that align like psvr Sony knew they would only sell maybe 4m units and they were not disappointed

[Profchaos]

I can see it selling well IF the homebrewing community get around it and turn it into a emulation device that allows you to play everything's down from n64 and PS1 era and hopefully works with PS2 but I doubt it would be able to. Along with remote streaming to all services like ge force now, xcloud and ofcourse PS remote play.

This seems likely as it runs Android under the hood based on all the leaked screenshots showing native android interface on the device

If it can do that it will be highly desirable in the retro handheld scene which is booming right now.

[Vits]

The criticism around it is that it doesn't do anything new and is basic just doing what you can already do with a phone, a tablet or another more complete streaming handheld. Hell, there is even already a handheld in the market also called Portal (made by Pymax) that can do the same and more. However, that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a public. The reality is that just like consoles themselves, there is a public for more streamlined experiences and the average Joe probably doesn't even know that he likely already has a device that does the same.

Now what I'm really curious about is not the number of units sold, but rather the margins of each one. Because what we know so far points to such a basic device that it would not surprise me if it's being sold for double or more its manufacturing costs. Which would be a much larger win for Sony than anything else.

[Barlos]

That'll do me. My average session is between 1-2 hours so at least I'll get a few hours before it needs recharging.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

That's why all these people saying "just buy a gamepad for your phone" were wrong.
Your phone's battery will die very quick and your phone will overheat (even if it's just streaming the game) while this can last longer than Switch.

[Abear21]

This will be sold out for Xmas and going for $500+ online by early December

[hiawa23]

Not bad. I think my Logitech G-Cloud lasts 8-10 hours.

[purple101]

If this could be used as a second controller with on screen prompts, map, stats etc, I would have considered it,

missed oppertunity in my opinion

[lucian229]

This is cool but I'm wondering can I play games and such elsewhere simply from my streamable games library or do I have to have my ps5 on at home?

[VariantAEC]

Only streams from your PS5 collection when PS5 is on.

[GamingSinceForever]

Does the Dualsense itself last that long? That seems like a long time.

[babadivad]

Surprised people actually want this.

[DivineHand125]

We will need to hear from more sources and a more detailed break down for the battery life.

I know my stance on this device already and I choose not to support it because it is very anti consumer.

For the ones that are going to purchase this device, test it on an existing device with a 7 to 8 inch screen and see if the experience is something you can palate. I remember trying to do remote play with my phone + razor kishi a few years ago and it wasn't pleasant. For the test connect your dual sense to the phone or tablet. See if you are comfortable before making an investment. The reviewers will never tell you it hard to make out some things on the screen because the game is designed for large screen tvs.

[Aaroncls7]

Thats not bad at all.
I don't use it much, but I think my steamdeck on average last about 3/4 hours tops.
Though I guess that varies depending on the game.

On top of that, you can get extra battery sleeves/addons which are kinda cool accessories.
So I am sure similar products will be marketed for this one as well.

I really like the design of the controller handles protruding out of the screen module.
It is very PS5 and attractive.