Pimax Portal View

Pimax Portal View
Basic Info
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Type	Head-mounted display
Subtype	Standalone VR
Developer	Pimax
Manufacturer	Pimax
Announcement Date	November 2022
Release Date	2023
Price	$449 (Kickstarter bundle with the 128 GB Portal); $599 with the 256 GB Portal QLED
Requires	Pimax Portal handheld (Retro model not supported)
System
Operating System	Android
Chipset	Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 (in the Portal handheld)
Storage
Storage	128 GB or 256 GB, microSD expansion
Memory	8 GB
Display
Display	Single LCD binocular (the Portal handheld's 5.46-inch 3840x2160 screen; QLED and Mini-LED on the Portal QLED)
Resolution	1920x2160 per-eye
Refresh Rate	144 Hz
Image
Field of View	100° diagonal; 60° with the movie-mode lenses
Optics
Ocularity	Binocular
IPD Range	58-68 mm hardware adjustable (manual)
Tracking
Tracking	6DoF inside-out, using cameras on the Portal handheld
Audio
Camera	Five rear cameras on the Portal handheld (four for positional tracking, one center camera)
Connectivity
Battery Capacity	4000 mAh (Portal handheld); 6000 mAh rear battery announced for the headset shell
Device
Input	Portal's detachable magnetic controllers, mounted in VR controller sleeves

Pimax Portal View is a virtual reality head-mounted display released in 2023. It is not a self-contained headset: View is a head-mounted shell made by Pimax that holds the company's Pimax Portal, an Android handheld game console with detachable controllers. With the handheld slotted in and its two controllers placed in tracking sleeves, the combination works as a standalone VR headset with 6DoF head and controller tracking.

Pimax announced the Portal and its View headset in November 2022 and funded them through a Kickstarter campaign, promising delivery in January 2023. The handheld reached buyers in mid-2023, but Pimax delayed the headset shell and redesigned it before shipping, citing poor weight distribution, comfort and durability in the first version. Road to VR compared the concept to the Samsung Gear VR, in which a phone is strapped into a headset shell.

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Re-checked the announcement, lens and camera specs, batteries, Kickstarter statistics, CES 2023 hands-ons, the April and July 2023 delay and redesign reports, the Dexerto and Android Central reviews and the current Pimax store pages against every cited source. About review dates.

Design and hardware

The View shell has no display or processor of its own. The Portal handheld supplies the screen, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chip and the tracking cameras. Pimax specifies the standard Portal with a 5.46-inch 3840x2160 LCD at 144 Hz, and the Portal QLED with a 5.46-inch QLED and Mini-LED display at the same resolution and refresh rate. In the headset, the screen is split between the two eyes, giving 1,920 x 2,160 pixels per eye, which Road to VR noted is about the same resolution as the Meta Quest 2.

The back of the Portal has five cameras. Four sit at the corners for positional tracking and one in the center was intended for mixed reality. The Portal's controllers attach magnetically to the sides of the handheld and can be pulled off without a release button. For VR, they slide into sleeves that turn them into 6DoF tracked controllers. To switch modes, the user opens Pimax's VR launcher on the handheld, removes the controllers and slides the handheld into the View shell.

At announcement, Road to VR reported that View included optional lenses: 100-degree lenses for what Pimax called a standard VR experience at 27 pixels per degree, or 60-degree lenses at 40 pixels per degree for watching films. The headset also carried a 6000 mAh rear battery to supplement the handheld's 4000 mAh battery and to counterbalance the weight of the handheld at the front.

Redesigned shell

The first View design used simple straps; Android Central compared it to the Google Daydream View headset for phones. The redesign announced in July 2023 took inspiration from Pimax's Crystal and 8K headsets and used a sturdier plastic strap with contoured arms. Pimax said View would come in two editions, one with a battery pack on the back and one without. MIXED reported that the redesigned shell does not support mixed reality, as it has no hole for the handheld's front camera. According to Android Central, Pimax said the shell fits any Portal unit regardless of screen type.

Specifications

Specification	Value
Display	Single LCD binocular (the Portal's 5.46-inch 3840x2160 screen; QLED and Mini-LED on the Portal QLED)
Resolution	1920x2160 per-eye
Refresh Rate	144 Hz (Pimax specification for the Portal display)
Field of View	100° diagonal; 60° with movie-mode lenses
Angular resolution	27 pixels per degree (100° lenses); 40 pixels per degree (60° lenses), per Pimax
IPD Range	58-68 mm hardware adjustable (manual)
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 (in the Portal handheld)
Memory and storage	8 GB RAM; 128 GB or 256 GB, expandable by microSD card
Tracking	6DoF inside-out using four corner cameras on the Portal
Battery	4000 mAh in the Portal; 6000 mAh rear battery announced for View, offered only on one edition after the redesign
Price	$449 (Kickstarter bundle with the 128 GB Portal); $599 with the 256 GB Portal QLED

History

Announcement and Kickstarter

Pimax presented the Portal in November 2022 as a "metaverse entertainment system" that could be used as a handheld, a VR headset and a living-room console. UploadVR described it as Pimax's third "VR 3.0" announcement, after the Reality 12K and the Crystal, neither of which had shipped at the time. The Kickstarter campaign launched on 15 November 2022 with a funding goal of $200,000. Pimax listed a January 2023 delivery date for all products and an early-bird price of $450 for the base Portal with the View shell. The campaign closed in January 2023 after 605 backers pledged $354,080.

Pimax also announced two further shells. Portal Horizon was to have a 140-degree field of view at 20 pixels per degree, and a Portal Social Edition was to add face and eye tracking, which the company described as still in the works. No prices were given for either. Before the campaign, Pimax asked UploadVR to let it use the publication's logo on the Kickstarter page. UploadVR declined and asked for review hardware instead, which Pimax said would probably not be ready in time.

CES 2023 demonstrations

Pimax showed Portal View at CES 2023 in January. UploadVR's Ian Hamilton tried it with Open Brush and a canyon scene and wrote that "tracking failed spectacularly" in both. Drawings did not stay in place as he moved his head, and his view drifted over the canyon while he stood still. Pimax representatives told him the controller sleeves were not ready for testing, so the demo used separate Touch-like controllers. He did not find the headset overly front-heavy. UploadVR later identified the demo controllers as Pimax Crystal controllers.

Inverse's Ian Carlos Campbell also tried the system at CES 2023. He described three View accessories with 60, 100 and 140-degree fields of view and wrote that "the system does work as expected", while doubting that it would replace Pimax's higher-end headsets such as the Crystal. His main concern was whether the Portal would get VR content that people wanted to play.

Delays and redesign

In an update on 13 April 2023, Pimax said it had finalized the Portal hardware and was starting mass production after building 569 units for developers and testing. It expected to deliver to Kickstarter backers by the end of April, including the VR headset. The company said software work was still needed on heat dissipation, power consumption, controller connection, "rare" tracking issues and SDK-related problems when porting games. It planned "more than 20 VR games" for the Portal's VR mode by the end of May, native PC VR over HDMI on the QLED model, and PC VR streaming over Wi-Fi and USB-C on the other versions. MIXED reported that Pimax had originally hoped to ship all orders by Christmas 2022.

On 18 July 2023, Pimax announced that the handheld had started shipping but that the View shell had been redesigned and would follow in the third quarter of 2023. The company's 600-plus Kickstarter backers were to receive it first, followed by retail orders. Portal product manager Snake Lin said: "The first prototype works, but we feel it's not good enough to mass produce. Its weight isn't distributed well and the comfort can be improved a bit. Also, we found some components are a bit weak if the user is rough with the device." UploadVR advised readers to treat the new date as "a very loose goal rather than an estimate", citing Pimax's record of delays.

Release and availability

Dexerto's August 2023 review of the handheld noted that the VR headset holder, the controller sleeves and the VR mode were not ready, and Android Central's December 2023 review covered the handheld only. Android Central reported at that point that some Portal owners had received the VR accessories.

In September 2026, Pimax's Portal product page listed four handheld configurations (Portal Retro, Portal 128 GB, Portal 256 GB and Portal QLED) and marked VR mode as supported on all of them except the Retro. The handheld-only box contains the Portal, its two magnetic controllers, a USB Type-C cable and a quick guide.

Reception

UploadVR recommended "extreme caution" before pledging after its CES demo, saying its demo did not match the Kickstarter page's claims that the controller sleeve was ready for mass production and that the entire View VR kit would be ready during the campaign. In its December 2023 review of the handheld, Android Central listed "a lot of uncertainty about the VR aspect" among the Portal's drawbacks. The reviewer wrote that redesigning the headset, the main selling point, after the handheld had shipped "doesn't instill a lot of confidence", and that the Portal would be in "a class all on its own" if Pimax delivered on the VR promise.

See also

• Virtual Reality
• Head-mounted display
• VR Headset
• Pimax Portal
• Pimax Portal QLED View
• Samsung Gear VR
• Daydream View