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The Portal is a head scratcher. It's a chat app that manifested itself into a hardware through sheer force of will. The first commercially available product from Building 8 is not as soon as a piece of hardware as Snap's Spectacles. In fact, at first glance, the device seems like a little more than an Echo Show / Google Home Hub competitor.
And then there's the matter of timing. In a meeting with TechCrunch ahead of launch, Facebook's hardware team The social media giant has always been a lighting rod for these issues, but 2018 has been particularly tough, for reasons summed up in Taylor's simply titled post, "Facebook, are you kidding?"
What is most important, however, is in this age of multi-tasking devices, the Facebook Portal and Portal + are devices that are designed to do one thing really well. Rather than pushing to develop a true Echo competitor, Facebook's first ground-up piece of hardware is essentially a teleconferencing device for friends and family.
It is, in the product's defense, one wrapped in solid hardware design with some clever choices throughout. If the Portal winds up its history, it will not be necessary to make the most of its core competency.
Rather, it will be due to the fact that the product team has neglected some other features in the name of focusing on video chat – a feature that 's got no shortage of delivery devices. Facebook told me that it would be more accurate, it would be more accurate, it would be more accurate.
The timing of the device is quite telling. Portals for the holidays. You can not get away from it as you're playing melancholy voice sings the beginning strains of "I'll Be Home for Christmas." The first spot is not on the nose, but similar heart-strings are tugged, as evidenced by the "Feel There" title. That's Facebook's pitch in a nutshell: We know it sucks you, but hopefully this screen will do the trick.
From a perspective standpoint hardware design, I'm on board. The smaller Portal looks quite like Lenovo's Google Assistant-powered Smart Display, with the different speaker placement. I'm into it. Lenovo's device is probably the best-looking smart screen around, and the Portal is a different cousin with a different haircut.
The Portal + – the model that's been hanging on my office desk for a few days now – is the most innovative of the two products from an industrial design perspective. It is, essentially, an ultra-wide 15.6-inch tablet mounted atop a tall, thin base. The display is connected to the base via a joint that allows it to swivel smoothly between portrait and landscape mode.
The screen is 1080p – plenty good for video chat, and a big step up from the Echo Show and (especially) Google Home Hub. Of course, the large footprint means it's going to be tough for those in smaller spaces to find an ideal spot (says the guy living in a one-bedroom apartment in New York City). At present, it's sitting atop my AirPort router.
The all-important camera is an inch above the screen, like an unblinking eye of Sauron. The 12-megapixel camera can do 5x zoom and capture movement within a 140-degree range. The four-way array flanks the lens on either side, doing double duty of listening to commands and noise canceling during cats.
The inductive buttons are two inductive buttons – two volume, one to turn the camera and mic. When you hit that last one, a notification will pop up on screen, and a small red light will illuminate just to the right of the camera, for added assurance. As an extra measure, Facebook also reads a video clip to physically cover the camera.
I found myself making a point to keep the cape cap on the majority of the time when I was not using the device to chat. When I was talking to someone, I kept it to the side, but kept it clipped on the base. The little piece of plastic is pretty easily lost. If Facebook does not go down the road again, it's probably a way to go.
The button placement is a bit of a shit show. The way I have the Portal + set up on my desk, the buttons are above eye-level. Makes sense, you want to display your face, you know, to look at it. This means when I want to say, change the volume, I find myself fiddling in the dark for them. Given that they've got no tactility, I invariably end up hitting the wrong one, more often than not jacking up the volume in the process.
Similarly, I often end up hitting a button or two when attempting to clip on the lens cap. Next time out, I need to know what to do with – I'm a tough guy.
The screen placement ensures that the camera does not obscure the camera in either portrait or landscape – though when swiveling, the corners do eclipse the shot. When in portrait, the bottom half of the bottom speaker. This is a bit of a flaw, but surprisingly, it does not dampen the sound as much as it initially expected. That said, when you're using the device to listen to music, keep it in landscape mode. In fact, I found myself keeping it that way the majority of time I was using it, regardless.
The sound is on the thing is decent. I did not have a chance to make it up against the standard Portal, but the deluxe version has more complex speaker array – 20w (2 tweeters, single 4-inch bass) versus 10w (2 full-range drivers). Like all of these smart displays, I 'm not going to recommend your home stereo, but I' ve been using it to listen to Spotify all day, and have been largely enjoying the experience.
The Portal's interface is an extremely bare-bones experience. The UI flips between two primary cards. The primary is, of course, a list of your Facebook contacts. You are most likely to be a favorite cat. One of the nice bits here is that the people you speak to do not have Portal to talk. They can chat with you on their phone or computer.
Swipe left and you get a full screen of large icons. From here you can click on Facebook or select your portal apps – Food Network, iHeartRadio, Newsy, Pandora and Spotify by default.
Click into the apps icon and you'll find that that's really going to be for Portal apps at the moment. Thin does not really begin to describe it. It's a decent enough starting point, but honestly, it does not seem to be interested in the API to all comers. Again, the company is taking care of everything here.
Still, Portal does bring some interesting innovation to video chat. To trigger the function, say "Hey Portal" and then "call [enter name here]"Simple enough. Though the actual "Hey Portal" features are really limited to making things happen and putting the unit to sleep. Anything beyond that and poor Portal gets confused. Even something like "Hey Portal, turn off camera" is with "I can not do that yet" in Portal's uneven speech pattern.
For everything else, Portal defaults to Alexa – functionality you can add during the setup process. That the system connects to Amazon's smart assistant to do much more to the world.
Portal's greatest trick is its automatic zooming and panning. Using built-in AI, the system automatically tracks users and follows them around the frame. So you can, say, cook while chatting and will be with you. The camera will also leave the room, keeping them all in frame. While chatting with Sarah Perez (who was using the standard Portal on the other end), the camera even zoomed in on her dog when she left the room for a moment.
The zooming is smooth and the effect is impressive, the fact that the team worked with a Hollywood cinematographer to help polish its execution. By default it moves to a bit too much for my liking, slowly zooming in and out of a way that you can adjust your sensitivity.
Spotify, Pandora and iHeartMusic. When I start playing something on my end, Sarah hears it, too. And we can both adjust our individual volumes. You can also talk to Bluetooth speakers or headphones, if that's more to your liking.
This being Facebook, the system comes with AR-style photo filters – 15 in all (with more coming, no doubt). You can turn yourself into a werewolf, add a disco ball – you know, the usual. They do a good job tracking your movements and add an extra little dimension of fun to the system.
Portaling with young children. On your side, you'll see a story – on theirs, it 's embedded inside an AR storybook like the Three Pigs. There are only a few stories at launch, but then most kids enjoy repetition, right?
Like the Home Hub, Portal defaults to a makeshift digital picture frame when not in use. Naturally, it defaults to photos and videos from your Facebook feed. As someone who does not really use Facebook, the Superframe feature was not really in the bag, but the ability to display information like the weather and reminders of things like friends' birthdays was nice.
Above all, Portal is a bit of a one-hit wonder. Admittedly, it does that one thing (video chat) fairly well, and at $ 200 for the Portal and $ 349 for the Portal +, it's certainly priced competitively (and in spite of Facebook's insistence otherwise, may be a bit of a loss leader). But it's a hard sell compared to the Echo Show and Google Home Hub.
And, of course, there's a lot of privacy in your home. Between the camera / speaker disabling button, lens cap, localized AI and the promise not to eavesdrop or spy, Facebook has gone out of its way to ensure users that it's not using the device as a portal into your own privacy. But given the kind of year the company is having, it is likely to be enough.
There's a need for a new screen. "Hey Portal, what can you do?" It's meant, of course, to get you started. But it's an important question – and in it's current iteration, it's not for which Portal is able to offer a particular compelling answer.
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