Review: Facebook Portal Go

I’ve been using Facebook’s new portable videophone, the Portal Go, for more than a week. My 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter use it to talk to my parents across the country. It’s been going pretty well. It’s an entertaining, immersive experience, although it's honestly not much different from previous iterations, including the Portal TV.

But last night my 4-year-old threw an inexplicable tantrum while we were on a call. Before I could say or do anything, my daughter impatiently grabbed the Portal Go and left the living room. When my son had calmed down, I walked off to find her. She was upstairs, comfortably snuggled in her bed with her grandparents on the device reading books to her.

If you’re not a parent, it is really hard to explain just how much your kids have lost in the past two years—even if your kids, like mine, are still a little too young to fully comprehend it. There’s so much I haven't been able to give them, but I can give them this. So far, the Portal Go is the best way I’ve found to bring long-distance family members closer together.

Photograph: Facebook

When Facebook went dark earlier this year, I quickly learned which of the people I know have friends and family overseas and which do not. More than 3.5 billion people around the world use Facebook and its apps, especially in countries like the Philippines, where my family is from and where Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa is fighting against misinformation rampant on Facebook.

At this point, arguing about whether to use Facebook is like arguing about whether to have access to the grid. A company can have extremely questionable business practices and still provide critical infrastructure. In many places, Facebook is the internet. All of this is a long way to say that I use Facebook as circumspectly as I can, but I do use it, and that has helped the Portal Go integrate itself seamlessly into my life. 

It looks and feels like a slimmer, taller Amazon Echo Show, with a gray, cloth-colored body that conceals two 5-watt speakers and a 20-watt woofer. It has a rechargeable battery with a tiny, annoying charging port in the base. The battery is arguably the most frustrating part of this device.  An hour-long Portal call with interactive stories and some YouTube drained the battery about 20 percent. A day on my desk playing music, attending multiple Zoom meetings, and checking different apps drained it completely. It really doesn't last that long, and worse yet, it takes a while to recharge (about two hours for it to charge to full from 40 percent). 

Photograph: Facebook

The Portal started as a dedicated videophone/digital picture frame, but Facebook has gradually expanded its uses. In addition to Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Zoom, you can add your Spotify, Deezer, or Pandora account; upload your calendars to a dedicated app; or search a browser. It also has built-in Alexa, although you can talk directly to the Portal with voice commands.

I am generally suspicious of smart speakers, so I used to keep the original Portal unplugged in a drawer until it was time to make a call. However, the Portal Go is much more useful. I can keep it on my desk and check the forecast, tap on the calendar to see my day, and quickly log into Zoom, where the Portal’s smart cameras help me look comfortable and great. It works as a digital picture frame, reminding me of all those vacations past, and my parents halfway across the country can read the kids a few books while I cook dinner.

If you don't already have a camera with smart panning, it's hard to overstate just how much more relaxed you can be when you're not worried about accidentally giving yourself a double chin, lighting yourself poorly, or falling out of frame. It's so comfortable that in a recent meeting, my coworker surreptitiously asked me if I'd fallen asleep. No! I was ... well. Hmmm.

Photograph: Facebook

The Portal Go retains most of the smart features that made it so appealing to me before. The smart camera pans and widens to pick up everyone in the frame, although the fact that it’s easier to move than ever has made that less necessary. Smart Sound picks up voices and downgrades background noise, which means my parents can still understand everyone who's talking, even when it’s otherwise absolute chaos—the fan running in the kitchen as my husband cooks, our dog barking, the kids shouting to be heard over each other.

The AR masks are just as fun, and Facebook has added new books to the Story Time app. But one of my biggest complaints is the lack of fresh material in Story Time. My kids love books and reading aloud and can easily go through three stories in one sitting. Facebook adds new stories regularly, but my personal opinion is that it needs a dedicated team adding a half-dozen stories per week. It would be nice to have much more new material. 

You can turn the camera and mic off with a physical button or a manual shutter. Since it has Alexa built-in, your kids can call emergency services with the Portal if you become incapacitated, a handy perk. There’s also a Watch Together feature that lets you watch a movie or show with someone else miles away at the same time, but this might be more useful if you have a bigger screen, like a Portal TV. 

If you plan to have the Portal in a public space in your house, you can create a Household profile that will keep your private calendar and other apps locked. This is useful if your kids frequently make calls to your family unsupervised, so they won't accidentally start a Zoom with your boss. I didn’t need to use this because I kept the Go on my desk in my office. 

Facebook knows what it’s doing. Whether it's turning Snaps into Instagram Stories or making smart glasses that are dangerously easy to wear, its gear is generally attractive and usable. The company also released a new and larger desktop version, the Portal Plus, but the image of my daughter sharing an intimate moment with her grandparents thousands of miles away will stick with me. The billions of people around the world who use Facebook aren't doing it out of ignorance. We use it because—as questionable the company is—it makes our lives better.