Over the past few years, video chat has become a significantly more important part of our daily lives, namely for anyone working or going to school remotely during the pandemic. Over time, Meta has rolled out support in the Portal community for popular apps like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, which has increased the popularity of the video chatting devices.

The Portal TV is the only product in the lineup that doesn’t include a screen. It requires the use of a television or computer monitor to work. It’s much like a standalone webcam that you would purchase for a desktop computer.

Build / Design

In the box, you will find the Portal TV, a remote control, the A/C adaptor and an leaflet (that directs you to an online setup page). Oddly, there’s no HDMI cable included in the box; strange for a device that requires an HDMI connection to work. You will either need to have a spare HDMI cable or purchase one at checkout.

The size reminds me a bit of the Xbox Kinect that came with the Xbox One several years ago. On the bottom, you will find a stand that can be used for placement underneath your TV. It angles upward, ideal for placement on a TV stand. You can also place it on top of your TV, using the folding stand and the secondary folding clamp at the front of the device.

The Portal TV does support a couple upgrades over the standalone Portal devices. The first is a 120 degree field of view vs. a 114 field of view on the standalone, ideal for large rooms of people. The second is an eight-field microphone array versus the 4-field on the other devices; again ideal for large rooms of people.

For those with high wall mounted televisions with no TV stand, placement becomes more difficult. There’s no clamp to fix the device at the bottom of your TV. It would be a matter of placing it on a nearby piece of furniture and running the HDMI cable from the TV to the device.

If you are concerned about privacy, there’s a physical shutter to cover up the camera lens. There’s also a button to turn off the microphone (located on the right side opposite of the camera lens). If that’s not enough, you could simply unplug the Portal TV from the HDMI port on your television and only use it when you plan a video call.

On the back of the device, you will find the power plug, an HDMI port and a USB-C connection. Interestingly, the USB-C port can be used for a connection to a computer monitor. The Portal community also discovered it can be used with USB-C to Ethernet dongles, providing an option for a direct, wired connection rather than having to rely on the Wi-Fi.

The remote control (which is small enough to lose easily) comes with the 2 AAA batteries required for use. There is a direction pad at the top with a select button in the middle, volume up / down buttons, a home button, a back button, a play / pause button and a voice control button. There’s also 3 dedicated buttons for apps; specifically Netflix, Prime Video and Facebook Watch. The power button at the bottom seems more like a sleep mode.

Setup / Performance

The initial setup is very smooth. You select a language, connect up to your Wi-Fi network (have your password handy), then the Portal TV starts automatically downloading /installing software updates. The whole process took about 15 minutes to complete (the majority waiting for the updates to install). It will require a device restart after the update is installed.

At this point, you can connect the device to your Facebook, WhatsApp or Workplace accounts to get started. You can select favorites to appear on your call list and select specific accounts that you don’t want to be able to call you. You can also setup the Facebook and Alexa voice assistants, ideal if you lose the remote and want to just say who to call.

By default, apps like Netflix and Prime Video are pre-installed. Others such as Zoom, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Paramount+, Showtime, Starz, Plex, SlingTV and Tidal can be found on the app store. That being said, the App Store pales in comparison to smart TV or apps found on Roku / Amazon Tv devices.

There’s also a photo app (for viewing Facebook photo albums) and a photo booth app (for taking pictures). The Story Time app is also pre-installed, a fun way to tell stories when you video chat with kids.

I tested a few video calls with both Messenger, WhatsApp and Zoom. Messenger was notably more polished than the other two apps, but the other two were perfectly fine for casual or work calls. Similar to other Portal devices, the camera software automatically follows you around the room. It can get confused with multiple people in the room or pets zipping through, but it’s stable for the most part. Of course, video quality is somewhat dependent on your bandwidth and the bandwidth of the person you are calling.

I tested a few of the video apps and didn’t find any major issues. Netflix and Prime Video were both smooth; easy to sign up and video performance was similar to the apps already built into my TV. That being said, I don’t know why I would specifically use the Portal TV apps unless I had a non-Smart TV. There’s no reason to use a secondary app for streaming video if those apps are already in your TV’s interface. Of course, on the standalone Portal devices, it totally makes sense to use for streaming.

Should You Buy it?

The Portal TV is best suited for groups of people that want to chat in the same space on a video call. While the standalone Portal devices are great for 1-on-1 chat, having a wide angle view of a room is ideal for two or more people. Additionally, the larger amount of screen space on your television is ideal when chatting with up to eight other callers on Facebook Messenger (Four on WhatsApp).

If that’s what you need, the Portal TV is a good, relatively inexpensive (when on sale) way to bring video chat into any room that has a television. It can also be more relaxing to lounge on a couch and chat rather than sit at your desk using a traditional webcam; effectively the same argument gamers use when discussing console versus PC.

We’ve seen the Portal TV as low as $49, which is a fairly frequent sale. We have also seen bundle deals both offered online and at warehouse clubs. that can bring the per unit pricing even low, perhaps ideal when outfitting multiple televisions in your home with a camera. You can find the latest sale price in our deal feed here.

Portal TV Review

It’s been a little over half a year since Facebook’s Portal devices hit the smart home device market. The initial launch must have been a success for the company since it’s planning to release new versions of the Portal during Fall / Winter 2019, perhaps smaller screen options to compete with the Echo Show 5.

At the moment, there’s two hardware options in the Portal lineup, the 10-inch Portal and the 15-inch Portal+. The first has a fixed 720p screen and the latter has a 1080p flatscreen on a 90 degree swivel (landscape or portrait, just like a smartphone or tablet).

The larger option also has beefed up speakers, 20W (2 tweeters, single 4 inch bass) compared to the 10w (2 drivers) on the cheaper option. Both offer a 12MP camera with a 140 degree field of view. That’s a big step up from the Echo Show (2nd gen) which only offers a 5MP camera with a 90 degree field of view.

The touchpad is very responsive on the 15-inch screen and the touch interfaces on the volume controls at the top of the device are intuitive. You can tap to the left or right of the camera to decrease or increase the volume. You can also tap above the camera to disable the camera & microphone completely. There’s also a camera privacy cover included for additional protection.

Regarding connectivity, the Portal devices support Wireless-Wi‑Fi (802.11a/b/g/n/ac), Dual band MIMO (2.4GHz and 5GHz), and Bluetooth 4.2. It’s also an Alexa-supportted device, so you can get Amazon’s voice assistant without buying an Echo device.

Portal’s Bread & Butter: Video Calls

I’ve used plenty of video chat tools in the past (Skype, Facetime, etc…). You either sit down at your computer / laptop, prop up your phone or hold the phone in front of your face the entire time so you can move around. Ultimately, you are always in a fixed position with the camera.

The Portal is the first device that’s freed me up to wander around the kitchen, office, living room while still chatting with the person on the screen, since the smart camera follows you around. It’s actually a bit unsettling at first because you have to change your behavior. I find it really useful in the kitchen, since I’m always moving around while cooking or cleaning.

The video quality is really impressive, no dropped calls either. You can really see the difference in quality with the 12MP camera and the extra wide angle lens. Portal also automatically widens when more people enter the room, great for big families.

One cool feature is the ability to track a specific person on the video stream. You just double tap their face and the Portal on the other end will track their movements around the room. Ideal if there are pets or kids running around the room.

I’ve been using it to chat with relatives on the opposite coast. Portal to Portal calls offer the best quality, but you can basically call anyone with Facebook Messenger installed on their phone. You can conference in a total of six additional video feeds, although talking gets a little hectic with that many feeds open. Great for celebrating holidays with distant family though.

First Party Apps:

I love the Story Time app! While my nephew isn’t quite old enough to keep his attention on the story, I can tell he will enjoy it as he grows older. It basically launches you into a children’s story (like the Three Little Pigs) and animates the screen as you read along in the story. It also utilizes those face animations seen in apps like Snapchat, turning into the cartoon wolf in the story or one of the pigs.

You can really tell there was a lot of thought put into the Story App, an attempt to attract family users. My only gripe is the limited number of stories in the app. Facebook clearly needs more content for kids in addition to a way for users to purchase more stories for a few bucks.

The Facebook Watch app is ok, if you like watching Facebook videos. You can find video shared by your Facebook friends as well as popular video clips / news clips. I’ve rarely used it, mostly because I rarely use Facebook for video clips.

The Superframe option is pretty cool. You can set it you display your own Facebook photos / videos, basically acting as a screensaver. If you multiple Facebook accounts connected to the Portal, you can pull all that media content in and display a massive amount of media if you choose. The menu options are very granular, drilling down to individual photo albums.

If you don’t want to display your own photos, the Portal is loaded with a collection of scenic backgrounds to display while the Portal isn’t in use. It can also display the current weather in your area as well as birthdays of your Facebook friends.

Music Apps:

I love using Pandora and iHeartRadio to stream music. Just like a smartphone, you can launch the apps to play music in the background while browsing around in other apps. The touch interface is easy to use, ideal for quickly popping around to other artists / songs while working in the kitchen.

Facebook has also included a Spotify app, but the downside is you have to be subscribed to Spotify Premium to use it. There’s no access for the free version ion the native app. You can use Alexa to stream music from Amazon as well as pair your phone / laptop to the Portal to stream purchased music to the device.

Video Apps:

This is where the Portal hardware really starts to become unattractive compared to devices like the Echo Show or even tablets. There’s a handful of news video apps (ABC, CNN, Fox), a Watch app for Facebook videos, and a web based interface to support YouTube. that’s pretty much it. No native apps for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, etc… Even six months after launch!

That being said, you can stream Hulu videos using the Portal’s web browser. Navigating Hulu is a little slow in the browser, but streaming videos works perfectly well. Amazon Video also works using this method, but Netflix does not. You can log into Netflix and see the video previews, but the site throws up error messages when attempting to stream video.

The web-based YouTube interface is fine, but the mobile app interface would really improve the experience. It’s tough to click the play, volume buttons on the web interface on the 15-inch screen. I can’t imagine how difficult it’s going to be on the 10-inch.

Misc Apps:

I love cooking and the Portal doesn’t disappoint (if you want to use it in your kitchen). There’s a Food Network app that’s pretty good, but I really use it for YouTube walkthroughs as well as looking up new recipes on any site. It’s much easier than trying to scroll through my smartphone while in the weeds preparing dinner.

There’s a collection of gaming apps included, not particularly exciting though. Words with Friends and Draw Something are probably the most well known games. There are multiplayer board games like chess, checkers, and battleship as well as card games like gin rummy and poker. There’s also Sodoku, if a single player experience is more enticing.

Should I Buy This?

One of the biggest problems with the Portal at the moment is the price. It’s an expensive device to buy just for video calls, less expensive if you are using it for streaming all the time. While sales have brought the 10-inch model as low at $99 (MSRP: $199) and the 15-inch model as low as $249 (MSRP: $349), that’s still pretty expensive for a video call that you could do on your smartphone or tablet for free.

That being said, you are getting extremely impressive video quality during calls and a move-freely, truly hands-free solution to video chatting. If you have family all over the country (or world) and want to stay in touch with them, this is an excellent way to do it. For the price conscious, perhaps wait until the new models are launched at the end of 2019 to see discounts on the first generation models.

Facebook Portal+ Review: Amazing Video Calls, Limited App Store