It’s odd that the comparison is with the standard Steam Deck instead of the Steam Deck OLED, which has a 90Hz display. That aside, the Ayn Portal seems promising—and just to clarify, before anyone says the name is copying the PlayStation Portal, the Pimax Portal actually came first in 2023. It seems companies just really like naming their devices “Portal,” especially for handhelds.
For streaming, the Ayn Portal offers a lot… It supports Wi-Fi 7 and runs on Android, which means it has great connectivity and access to many streaming apps. You can use it for PlayStation local streaming through the PS Play app, Xbox Game Pass Cloud, Moonlight and Steam Remote for local PC streaming, GeForce NOW for PC cloud gaming, and even Antstream for retro game streaming. Plus, it’s powerful enough to run most Nintendo Switch games and other “retro” systems by means of emulation, so it offers a lot for the price.
However, early reviews have pointed out some problems. It only has Widevine L3, which means it can’t stream video content in 1080p, making it almost useless for media streaming. HDR also doesn’t seem to work at the moment. According to Ayn support, it should, but so far no one has been able to enable it.
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