PlayStation 4 Portable V2 shrinks Sony’s console into a 7-inch handheld

Someone has turned a PlayStation 4 Slim into a portable console. Again. The PlayStation 4 Portable V2 takes the hardware from Sony’s home console and fits it inside a custom handheld shell, complete with a 7-inch OLED screen, physical controls and a removable battery. It’s smaller than the original version, though nobody will mistake it for a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch. This is still a chunky machine. What makes it interesting is that it doesn’t use emulation, cloud gaming or Remote Play. There’s a real PS4 Slim motherboard inside. Games run directly on the original hardware, so compatibility and performance should match the console it came from. That also makes the build far more complicated than it first appears.

Real PS4 hardware in a smaller body

The creator didn’t simply open a PS4 Slim and slide its components into a printed case. The motherboard had to be physically cut down to make it fit. That’s serious work.

Console boards aren’t designed to be trimmed, and one bad cut can destroy the entire system. The process requires detailed knowledge of the board layout, power delivery and internal connections. This isn’t the kind of weekend project most people should attempt with a screwdriver and a spare console.

Once modified, the hardware sits inside a custom 3D-printed enclosure. The V2 shell is more compact than the previous design and looks better suited to handheld use, though it remains much larger than a typical portable gaming device.

At the centre sits a 7-inch OLED display with a resolution of 1,920 × 1,080 pixels. That’s a sensible choice. The PS4 was built around 1080p gaming, so the screen doesn’t ask the hardware to push an unnecessarily high resolution. OLED should also suit darker games particularly well, thanks to its strong contrast and deep black levels.

There’s another screen too. A smaller secondary display, controlled by an ESP32 board, shows system information while the console runs. It gives the handheld a slightly industrial look, but it also serves a practical purpose by keeping temperatures and other data visible.

The cooling system comes from a GTX 750

Packing console hardware into a tight shell creates an obvious problem: heat. The original PS4 Slim has a cooling system designed around a specific case, fan layout and airflow path. Shrink the available space and temperatures can rise quickly, especially during demanding games. The solution here is hard to miss.

A cooling fan taken from a GeForce GTX 750 graphics card sits on the rear of the handheld. It’s an unusual choice, but it makes sense. Desktop graphics card fans are designed to move air across hot components, and this build needs all the airflow it can get.

Oddly, the large rear fan isn’t the loudest part of the system. Most of the noise reportedly comes from a smaller 30 × 30 mm internal fan. Small fans often spin at high speeds. That creates a sharper, more noticeable sound than the lower hum produced by a larger fan. Anyone who has used a compact gaming laptop under heavy load will know the effect. The cooling setup isn’t elegant, but it’s practical. This machine needs to remove the heat generated by full PS4 hardware, not a low-power mobile processor.

A removable battery makes it more useful

The PlayStation 4 Portable V2 runs on six 21700 battery cells arranged in a removable pack. Total capacity is rated at 5,000 mAh, which is 1,000 mAh less than the battery used in the earlier version. Battery life still sits at roughly 1.5 to three hours.

That may sound limited next to modern handheld PCs, but the PS4 Slim was never designed to run from batteries. Its processor, graphics hardware, display and cooling system all draw a considerable amount of power. Demanding games will probably push playtime towards the lower end of that range. Lighter titles may stretch it closer to three hours.

Removing the battery drops the machine’s weight to around 900 grams. That’s still heavy for a handheld, but it makes the system easier to use on a desk or connected to an external display. It can also run directly from a power adapter. An HDMI output allows the V2 to connect to a television or monitor, turning it into a compact PS4 setup when portability isn’t needed. That feature gives the build more flexibility than a handheld-only design.

Clever engineering, but not a retail console

The PlayStation 4 Portable V2 isn’t a product you’ll see on store shelves. There are no announced plans for mass production, and the level of modification involved would make commercial manufacturing difficult. It’s also not a realistic DIY project for most players.

Cutting a console motherboard, building a custom cooling system and wiring a portable power solution require specialist knowledge. The final device remains heavy, noisy and far less polished than a commercial handheld. Still, it works.

That’s the real achievement. The V2 runs PlayStation 4 games on genuine hardware, adds a full-HD OLED display and fits everything into a portable enclosure. It may not be practical, but it’s a smart piece of custom engineering that shows just how far console hardware can be pushed.

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Real PS4 hardware in a smaller body

The cooling system comes from a GTX 750

A removable battery makes it more useful

Clever engineering, but not a retail console

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