Description
Facebook Portal Hands-Free Video Calling Smart Display
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Facebook Portal Hands-Free Video Calling Smart Display
£222.75 £144.79
Out of stock
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Western Digital WD Elements Portable (1TB, WDBUZG0010BBK-CESN) £154.62£100.50
David Sherlock –
I bought this for my parents during lockdown. I set it up for them and there have been times when they haven’t worked out how to use it, but I think they are getting the hang of this now. It’s been great for keeping in touch remotely, but we haven’t managed to set it up with Whatsapp because you need a smartphone for that (and they haven’t got one, hence the portal). So it’s only been used with Messenger. My dad is blind, so he cannot see the screen to answer it, so the one thing that would be great is if he could answer it using the Alexa app, or he could call people on it using Alexa, We tried to setup Drop-in, but that didn’t work. That would really help if this functionality was added and I have to confess, I was surprised that DropIn wouldn’t work. On the whole though it’s been good but you do need to be able to touch the screen to answer. The other area which is annoying is that at the end of EVERY call, you get asked to rate it, which again can confuse an old person, so perhaps just asking occasionally would be better. 3 people found this helpful
Deve –
The concept is good but it is flawed. The camera is awesome the screen great and sound good. The animations are even fun so why is it flawed. Well obviously you either need a Facebook or whatsapp account. I don’t have a FB account after removing myself from it 3 years ago so wanted with whatsapp. The problem start to arise as it essentially becomes a tethered screen and so both phone and portal ring together. You cannot have your phone turned off or out of range either. I’m computer literate and bought this for my elderly mother and it causes real confusion with her. The setup wants you to use FB and Alexa which is annoying. I was expecting (maybe naively) it to be a standalone unit which it isn’t. Maybe FB is more standalone than WhatsApp but personally I can’t stand FB and its security and privacy issues. So great product but let down by how it’s been implemented. 10 people found this helpful
Orchid Blue (verified owner) –
I bought it so I can communicate with my mother while I’m overseas (she gave up with the iPad almost immediately). And you know what’s it’s great for calling her and she can use it well enough，once I setup a Facebook account. She talks and the camera tracks her. You just have to be aware of the limitations – no images or text just video and audio. Don’t buy the TV version unless you want low quality video (I have both and the camera on the mini is so much better). One tip is to use the app to control the photoframe function so you can add family photos from a distance. Software update: The Portal Mini update has added support for Zoom, Bluejeans and GotoMeeting, plus games and browser. Not Netflix. The Portal TV update added Netflix, but no new video conferencing apps. One person found this helpful
bradley amos (verified owner) –
I bought a Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro (for £399) in September 2019. It’s been faultless. The ultra-fast processor is exactly the same (ie the same part) as the contemporary top of the range Samsung, its main camera takes superb photos and the only reason I decided to replace it with the 14T Pro was its storage (128GB) was nearly full and I didn’t want to either delete a load of photos and videos or remove them to another storage device or cloud. Sadly Xiaomi don’t allow you to use a removable SD card, so you’re stuck with whatever on-board storage the phone comes with. As the 14T Pro has 516GB and it’s taken me five years to fill 128GB on the old phone, I decided it looked a good bet. And at the time (November 2024), Gadget Tree were also offering it with 12 months of interest-free credit, so although it was £599, it wasn’t going to destroy the wallet just before Christmas. And certainly, it’s a fantastic device. The on-board software transferred everything possible, including all my photos and videos, from the old phone to the new one (it helped to leave it right by my WiFi router to speed it up), it takes great photos, it’s intuitive to use and the processor is ultra fast. When you’re setting it up, you’ll be asked to approve a load of things (eg with the ‘Cleaner’) with a single click. Don’t. You need to expand on this and laboriously go through every single ‘please spy on me’ button, from dozens of companies you’ve never heard of, and turn them off. Luckily, you’ll only have to do this once. It comes with a charging cable but no charger and a plastic flexible case. As the camera lenses stick out from the back, the phone is more bulky than my old one and consequently feels a bit less ‘premium’ in the hand. It weighs about 240g with the case and sim card fitted, which is only about 4 grammes more than my old one. There’s a load of unneccessary apps on the phone you will probably want to delete, but it’s easy enough to do. I can’t tell you about the wireless charging because I don’t have the charger, I haven’t tried any of the fingerprint recognition stuff and the battery life so far (after seven weeks) has been excellent. I’ve yet to get it down below 50% in a day, even after spending far too much time on it. So why only three stars? Very simply, if you haven’t had a top-of-the-mid-range phone before, you’re going to be absolutely blown away with this. Buy one, you won’t regret it, it’s five stars all the way for you. But if you already have something like my Mi 9T Pro, you’re really not going to notice much difference, if any. It is 5G and has AI features of course, if they matter to you. They don’t to me. I wonder if smartphones have reached a temporary plateau in terms of technological development? This is a great phone, but it’s really not noticeably better to me than the one it’s replacing. To sum up, if you’ve already got an earlier higher end Xiaomi, unless, like me, you’ve run out of storage space on it, you need to decide if it’s worth buying one of these as although it’s a great phone, your old one will be just as good in almost every respect. I hope this is helpful to you and I’d appreciate a click of the button if so. Thank you. 62 people found this helpful
annegrenham (verified owner) –
Brilliant bit of kit, set up easy, placed below tv on stand, I can sit in the room anywhere and ask it to call anyone. Good clear picture and sound. You don’t even have to shout across the room, speak normal and the recipient can hear great. Someone else comes in room and the camera adjusts itself to accommodate all in view. To finish the call you just tell it too. Alexa built in too, means I can control my smart devices. Not used what’s app on it, but spotify all good, best bit of kit I have seen for some time. I would recommend. One person found this helpful
Darren Standish (verified owner) –
I love it!! You can add apps to it, make video calls through messenger, listen to music and so much more. It also works like a digital picture frame!! It has alexa on it, so I can ask questions or get help if I need it which is a plus. It knows my voice, and I can set up a pin to keep people off it if I choose so. (Which I went ahead and did) I also enjoy that it has a privacy mode where you can turn off your camera and mic. There is so many things I absolutely love. I also learned I can surf the web on it, and turn off Alexa’s purchase by voice feature so I have no worries of her picking up purchases from commercials on tv or my kids. Another cool thing I love is I can set my favorite contacts, and I can click on the icons to call them. It has a decent speaker on the back of it when I play music through spotify that projects amazing sound quality. Believe me, the portal gets LOUD. It has another cool feature called story mode. It can read books to littles! How cool is that? That’s not even all the portal has to offer but that’s a few of my favorites! I can also have her set alarms, she shows the time and weather too. I also have her alert me of bad weather. Over all this thing is absolutely mind blowing, and goes beyond what I was expecting it to do. One person found this helpful
Zeena –
I wasn’t sure with my purchase as I saw a few negative comments from UK customers but so glad I decided to give it a try. Portal + is just huge tablet for various uses for everyone in my family. Setting up was very easy, activating Facebook, WhatsApp, Zoom, YouTube and other apps permissions was without any problems. Of course, the choise of apps is limited but I believe they will be adding more and more soon. On the other side it’s not a problem as I easily set up the bookmarks on the main menu and with one touch we can just use our most used TV/satellite channels, study courses and other sources over the website, they all running smoothly. Quality of the camera is amazing, screen resolution as well. Game selection fit to all of us, only Checkers are not working as the moment. Uploading photos from my phone was little bit harder, but I blame my phone. ..As a Google home fan and owner of various smart devices, I had to install Alexa first time on my phone to activate it, but she works on Portal without any problem. Voice commands are limited as she can only open apps, not a bookmarks but we don’t need this at all. She reacts to all members of our family, even to my Czech accent :). We have now Google and Alexa but it doesn’t make any troubles as we use Google for most of the devices and Alexa is there for Portal only.. It’s quite heavy gadget but the handle in the back is making it very easy to move it to another room. I found only one negative thing on this beauty and it is a sound. Sound settings has only three levels and even on lower bass settings, sometimes we thing it’s still quite high. I think it’s little bit unpleasant when it’s in lower volume, in higher it’s not so bad…. Screen resolution is amazing as I mentioned, watching RedBull videos is nice bonus (app from the store). I have to say that for £220 pounds it’s absolutely amazing 15inch gadget, with brilliant camera, microphone and screen resolution and has a huge potential in the future. But for me it’s perfect already. 5 people found this helpful