Customer Ratings & Reviews

Its only been a year and we barely used it. Contacted tech support thru email only, tried all their recommendations and troubleshooting steps, didnt work. It wont even allow you to do hard reset or manual factory reset. I think this is their biggest issue, touch screen is defective.

If your using it for consistent messenger ok but it's more a unused product

I bought one but then I returned it. Didn’t like the screen resolution.

Bought two, so I could give one to my dad. 7000 mile trip later screen would turn I . The portal is on, light is on, can hear Alexa talking but no screen. Since this was a gift, I'm too late to return it. Now I got an expensive piece of junk and nothing for my dad. THANKS!!

Voice command are limited, even it has two different platform.

I'm so glad I got the protection plan as part of this when I gave it as a gift, it barely lasted a year and just stopped working all of a sudden.

Not really working well. I sent this product to my mom , it freezes and audio not good. This is the only time i have a chance to review

This never did work correctly an I’m in to this kind of smart devices probably manufacturer defect. When it did work it was pretty cool

Can’t fully work. Need better manual. Does many things but still can’t fully work

All you can do is video chat with Facebook users. its has Alexa built in but only limited voice use only.

horrible thing flickers and wont work no support for portal cant reach anyone

I was a skeptic before purchase, expecting Portal to be a subpar smart display vs Google and Echo, but I've enjoyed it so much, I've already purchased several more as family gifts. The most pleasant surprise is how enjoyable Portal is as an always on photo frame, automatically displaying photos *and* videos from my and my spouse's FB timelines, as well as tagged photos of selected friends and family. Really fun seeing long past vacation, family, and pet photos! And, timeline videos autoplay, with option to unmute audio. I'm not aware of any other smart display or e-frame that does these things. IMO, just that ability makes Portal worth it's cost. Portal's wide view, auto-tracking webcam also feels like a game changer. In the two initial calls I've made with family members (who viewed in Messenger on their phones), both remarked how great the video looked, and how fun it was to see me in big picture view. Eventually, I expect FB will enhance Portal with more complete smart display capabilities, hopefully including Google Assistant, so I can rely solely on Portal in my kitchen for all my Google Assistant capabilities. Give this a try this Christmas!

The video calling on the Portal is 100% better with a wide lens camera that captures the whole room, zooms in on a person, and follows that person as they walk about the room. The video service is Messenger, which all my friends and family have, so it's easy to call them all. I find myself video calling out of convenience now. My 4 year old kid uses it to call his grandma, since he can see her icon on the home screen and just taps it to call her. He also uses it to watch YouTube. It's not perfect though. It's not an intercom device, since each device has to have a different facebook/messenger account assigned to it and I'd like to have a device in each room but don't want to create 4 different facebook accounts. It has Alexa built in, but it doesn't support Alexa's calling and drop in features, so you can't call other Alexa's. It also doesn't support any of Alexa's smart home features, or music services. It does have music services built in (Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio), but not SiriusXM. The smart home features are non-existent with no support for any smart home devices. Alexa is basically useless with just simple "how is the weather" and "order paper towels" options. Alexa isn't even great at simple web questions, since both Google and Cortana are better. Alexa is good at it's communication and entertainment features (music, video) and those aren't supported on the portal. I'd recommend this if you aren't bought into Echo devices and don't intend to use as a house intercom. Note: I am not surprised that Facebook is an advertising company that may sell my information, since I'd prefer that to me actually paying for the service to use Facebook. Just like I prefer a free Google or Bing to paying to search the web, or a free Spotify account that may show me relevant ads based on my profile and listening history, or any website that tracks my actions with cookies so they can serve up more relevant products, .... I understand that this is how digital advertisers make money, so I'm not surprised.

I've watched many reviews on this product. The following camera seemed a bit gimmicky when I was watching reviews, but using it in real life, it is a game changer. I do not need to worry about positioning the camera to make the other person can see me. I can cook, clean, play with my dog while being on camera with my friends and family. Call quality is best as long as the other person is on WiFi. This device is primarily meant for Facebook Messenger video calls. You should not expect a Facebook app or Instagram app for it. It's also a stationary device, so you are not expected to walk around with the device in your hand.

I would definitely recommend the facebook portal for those whose main use is face-timing. The picture is crisp and clear...feels like your in the room with the other person. The sound is also clear, not a fuzzy, distant sound. A plus is that I can face-time with up to 6 other people at once. I live an hour away from my grandkids so the portal is perfect for me because I can see them during the week. I also like that I can listen to pandora and the look of my pictures from facebook as the flash across the screen.

Saw the Ads, seen it in store, thought about the size difference for all the others assistants, and thought oh great with alexa built in it should be great. BUT IT IS NOT READY. It can only call others (which works great), but has no voice control for typing in anything. When in Youtube, when you type the OS is so slow that it loses your taps and you get a letter locked, and the backspace deletes everything not just one character, and you can't just say what you are searching for. It is also just the basic $19 Alexa, NOT Alexa Show, so don't think it is an assistant like Google Home or Alexa Show. It reads recipes, it has skills but will not show Alexa Cloud Cam or any other camera. It is a novelty large facebook phone with very little else, unless you just want to watch the things it tells you too, because searching by typing is impossible. It can have multiple accounts attached to it and it works well for video calling but don't expect much more.

We bought two of these to have our toddler chat with family without running around the house with a phone in our hands or giving him the phone. The video calling on this is awesome and a much better experience than our iPhone cameras. That said, more apps are needed. Just YouTube isn’t enough.

Received today and could not be happier. Was able to see family in another country, that I haven't seen in years. Thank you and a huge hug of gratitude. Very easy to set up. Highly recommend.

I was skeptical at first but the camera on the portal is a game changer. It surprisingly works really well and makes the whole video chat experience so much better. I bought one for myself and my brother. Once our family and friends saw how well it works, they got one for themselves. We video chat so much more now and it definitely makes it feel like we are together. Other than the camera, the speakers sound great for using Spotify and sound fills up the room.

Bought this in December for my wife to video chat with our son who is in the military. It’s our only way to see and here him. We installed it and got it working. In March we upgraded our router and modem. We have a lot of devices and needed the capacity. Everything was fine. Then in late June Alexa started saying sorry I can’t help you now. We called support and they traced the problem saying the unit isn’t getting internet, yet all of my other devices were getting internet HMM. Turns out they updated our software in the portal and now it doesn’t work with our new router ( one of the best you can buy) support even told us to downgrade our router to make it work. We pleased to turn back the software and they said it will never happen. So if you plan on upgrading a router in the future I wouldn’t buy this portal. FYI our google hub still works too. Customer service from Facebook. TERRIBLE. Don’t return calls when promised. 5 days after they were supposed to call we got nothing. 5 more days nothing. You have to get support through your Facebook account. They will not let you make another request even after long waits because it’s one request per account. The bottom line is they changed the software rendering our unit as unusable. It’s only 7 months old, won’t return our money from Facebook we want to send it back and be reimbursed For this the unit. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Because I didn’t buy the protection from Best Buy. They won’t take it back either. How was I to know that the manufacturer would ruin the software and made it un usable. They like to sell to you, but nobody will help you. With these 2 companies customers obviously come last. Shame on the 2 big multi billion dollar companies sticking it to the little guy.