- The PlayStation 5 remains fairly difficult
to get your hands on.
I was fortunate enough recently to get one of my own.
And aside from all the games I've been playing on it,
I also wondered, could I just use this
as my streaming device?
I mean, I paid enough for it.
Maybe it can replace everything else I've got.
Hey, it even comes with a remote
if you order that,
and we'll talk about this a little bit later.
So for the last two weeks I've been using my PS5
as my exclusive streaming device.
And today I'll tell you how it went.
So let's dive in.
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The question on my mind,
as I started using my PS5 was,
could this be my only streaming device?
Could this replace my Roku, my Apple TV
my Fire TV, my whatever?
The short answer is, no, not really.
At least not for most people.
I think for some people it would work just fine,
but for most of us, yeah, not so much.
But let's dig into what the experience actually is.
When you're on the PlayStation 5,
it's divided into two sections.
You've got your games and your media up top.
We're gonna be living in the media section here
for this video.
In that media tab,
you'll see a lot of familiar apps
that come pre downloaded on your PS5,
like Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, that sort of thing.
Now, I wanted to get a few more apps.
So I went over to the All Apps section and scrolled down,
and what do you know?
There they all are right there.
And that's it.
There are only about 30 apps available
for you to use on the PS5 as of right now.
The good news is that most of the most popular apps
are on here.
So yes, you do have Hulu and HBO Max and Netflix
and Prime Video and Disney+.
However, you are missing a few of the key apps
on here that a lot of people do enjoy.
Things like Paramount+, Discovery+.
A couple of popular live TV streamers,
like Sling TV and Fubo TV are missing.
Although they do have YouTube TV and of course Hulu.
So already we have an answer to,
could this work for you as your permanent streamer?
Well, does it have the apps you need?
It might. It might not.
Now, assuming that it has the apps you want.
Okay, when you go into these apps
you'll find that for the most part
they work just like other apps that you've used before.
But you'll find that with some of these apps,
there is a decided lack of polish,
which makes sense, I suppose, because the app developers
aren't exactly designing these
with the PS5 foremost in their minds, right?
So when I go into my MLB app, for instance,
I find that my remote only works about, oh, I don't know,
70% of the time.
So if I'm trying to fast forward, rewind, pause, play.
Most of the time it'll work. Sometimes it won't.
And yeah, it got frustrating, really frustrating.
And you run into similar kinds of, again, lack of polish
on these apps.
But that sort of thing, aside, like I said,
most of the time the apps worked as advertised.
Another little bit of polish that's lacking
is in the organizational aspect of this media tab.
I cannot change where these apps show up on my screen.
It shows them in order of the most recently used.
Okay, so if I open up Netflix and start using Netflix,
then the next time I go to my homepage,
it will appear at the front of the line,
which isn't necessarily a horrible way to organize things.
Hey, if it's the most used apps on your list, great.
They're the most used ones and they're gonna be up front.
But I would like the opportunity to change them myself.
I get no option to shift their location
or pin apps to the front of the list.
And then there's the remote.
Oh boy. The remote.
This remote is, to put it bluntly, bad.
It's actually aggressively bad.
Now, I understand that the folks over at Sony,
when they were designing the PlayStation 5,
were not thinking of it as a streamer.
That's fine; I'm not necessarily expecting perfection
out of this thing.
However, I would expect a lot more than what we got here.
Its shape makes it not particularly comfortable to hold
in your hand.
The directional pad on it is just horrible.
You can see the little arrows here on the D-pad
and they are kind of tough to find on the remote.
And it makes it very tough,
especially if you're trying to type something out,
heaven forbid, on this thing,
then using that to get around is difficult
because they're spread so far apart.
You contrast that with something like the Roku remote,
where you just kind of have to roll your thumb over it
to get to the right place.
This one you've really gotta hunt around
for those directional buttons.
Now, all remotes require a little bit of time
to get used to them.
But with this one, I'm not sure that I would ever
be able to use this remote effectively or quickly
without having to look down every once in a while.
Oh, which button am I pushing?
And the buttons themselves are pretty awful.
They're the same hard plastic material
as the rest of the shell of the remote.
So it's hard to differentiate them by feel.
Most of them are the exact same size of small circle.
Okay, so now there's no way for me to differentiate
by shape like I can with other remotes,
and they're all flush with the plastic.
So, using it by feel is extremely difficult.
You have to look down a lot
to make sure you're pushing what you wanna be pushing.
Now, I've been using it for two weeks and you know,
maybe if I used it for another year solid,
I would finally get it all memorized,
and it wouldn't be such a big deal, but honestly,
it shouldn't be that big a deal after two weeks.
Now, some would say, why bother with the remote?
Just use the PS5 controller to, you know,
to control your streaming.
And that's fine.
You can absolutely do that.
The one thing that the remote does have
over the PS5 controller is the TV controls
and the shortcut buttons at the bottom.
On this remote I've got Netflix, Disney+,
Spotify, and YouTube.
Those are some pretty good options here.
If you want other ones, sorry, too bad.
But hey, at least we have some
so that if you do frequently use these apps,
you don't have to go back to the home screen constantly.
You can just toggle between them fairly easily.
You do have volume up and down and the TV power button,
which, on some TVs may be all that you need, honestly.
So on my Roku TV, for instance,
when I use my PS5 remote to turn on the TV,
it doesn't turn on the PS5 as well.
But if I click the PS button at the bottom,
that turns on the console
and then the Roku TV automatically recognizes
that the console has turned on,
and after a few seconds, it switches over to that input.
So, is it worth getting the remote?
Ah, I mean, it's an extra 25 bucks
on top of the very expensive console that you just bought.
I don't think so. Honestly.
It's a really, really bad remote.
Maybe if they come out with a new one,
it would be more attractive to me.
But really what it comes down to
is that I think, except for a very small subset of people,
this is not going to be a great daily streamer.
It just doesn't have the app count that you would need.
I mean, yeah, it's got the most popular ones
but I'm not gonna be doing any Hidden Gems videos
on the PS5 anytime soon.
The apps that it does have mostly work as advertised,
but yeah, with a few hiccups,
and pretty bad hiccups now and then.
So who would this work for?
If you're somebody who gets most of your entertainment
from gaming and you do stream a little bit on the side,
then this might work okay.
It does have a lot of those most popular apps.
But if it's the other way around.
If you prefer to get a lot of your entertainment
by streaming media instead of by playing games,
then this isn't the way to go.
Go with a Roku, go with an Apple TV, a Fire TV, a whatever,
because those are obviously built as streamers first.
And that's what you're looking for.
But let me know in the comments what you think.
Have you used the PS5 as a streamer? Would you?
Let me know. Hit those comments.
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