The PlayStation Portal was my gaming savior over an extended holiday break but this one flaw still grinds my thumbsticks

Date:
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Description:
I have always enjoyed the PlayStation Portal and sung its praises as often as I can, but its slow-charging battery is a real drawback and became apparent when relying on the device over the holidays.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

My enjoyment of the PlayStation Portal has been ever-present since it
launched in late 2023, but 2025s transformative updates have made it an excellent cloud gaming device, elevating the handheld to new levels and heightening my love for it exponentially.

I was away from home for around three weeks recently for the holidays and
only had access to the Portal for gaming. It was my absolute savior, and now, enhanced by its cloud streaming abilities, I had so much more at my
fingertips than what I was able to prepare on my PlayStation 5 Pro at home.

I managed to play on it for hours and hours here and there, making use of
both play modes (thats remote play and cloud streaming) as a result. However, one thing really does still irk me about the handheld: its batterys charging time. (Image credit: Future) Familiarity with familiarity

First, the good stuff. Boy, does the PlayStation Portal keep offering an exceptional way for me to play my PS5 games and work on the backlog, but this holiday season, after its cloud streaming update, and being away from home
for a few weeks, it really took that to another level. I was able to carry on getting hours of gaming in almost every day to play pretty much everything I wanted.

Previously, when going away from home, Id be conscious to leave my TV unit door open, to ensure my PS5 Pro could breathe and not be suffocated by its
own hot air after each remote session, but this time I needn't have bothered. The ability to now stream my own games, on top of everything included in the PS Plus Premium cloud library, meant that even games I had expected to play remotely were now at my fingertips through the internet.

As a result, streaming and quickly jumping into The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt , Control : Ultimate Edition , and starting an annual playthrough of The Last
of Us Part I complemented remote playing Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered beautifully.

Not hugely new games, and all ones that Ive played before, but the Portal having this extra string to its bow means theres more opportunity and more convenience to being able to replay familiar favorites rather than have to convince myself to jump back into things I know and love over newer titles.

Familiar games naturally feel right at home on the Portal - now a very familiar device for me - so it is a sort of circular confirmation. But if I were playing new games, itd be exactly the same: streaming your own games and those on the cloud is just brilliant for Portal users. (Image credit: Future/Rob Dwiar) Taking its sweet time

But it wasnt all perfectly rosy. One flaw with the Portal kept ruffling my feathers: its battery. And Im not even talking about battery life, but rather how unbelievably slowly it charges up once youve used it. Overall battery
life has also been a chink in the armor for the Portal, though personally,
Ive always found the duration reliable enough for my play sessions; the charging, however, is painfully slow.

So much so that, after finding a couple of hours of playtime nearly every early morning over the course of the holidays, I routinely had to plan specifically when and where to charge the Portal so it could sit
uninterrupted to refill its juice, and ensure it'd be safely topped up for
the next play session.

Then, almost every subsequent check of the charging progress was met with disappointment. It was like ones own potential bank balance: always lower
than you think. This was also the ire of my family, who wanted to charge
their phones. Oops.

In a world where we have ultra-fast phone chargers and an array of charge-delivery systems for laptops, tablets, and other devices, especially when you look at GaN chargers, I am extra baffled by the charging pace, or lack thereof, for the Portals battery. For context, it has always taken me around two and a half hours (sometimes longer) to get the Portal back to 100% from nearly empty. Thus, given my holiday play sessions took the device down to around 50%, I was looking at needing it to be tethered for comfortably
more than an hour.

I love my launch Portal still, despite that, but if there is ever to be a revision of the device, then a much-improved battery with faster charging
time - a dedicated quick charge function would be a joy - has to be near the top of the list for Sony when considering how to make this brilliant device even better.

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/gaming/ps5/the-playstation-portal-was-my-gaming-savi or-over-an-extended-holiday-break-but-this-one-flaw-still-grinds-my-thumbstick s


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