Tiny DIY PS5 tablet offers glorious, chunky, portable PlayStation power with 4K OLED visuals

The current crop of gaming consoles arrived just moments before a wild resurgence in the popularity of handheld gaming devices, largely spearheaded by the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck thereafter. Sony's game-streaming-centric response to the portable gaming craze was seen as disappointing by many. Taking matters into his own hands, the YouTube creator known as DIY Perks has created what he calls the PlayStation 5: Tablet Edition. 

For the project, Matt Perks took the smaller, redesigned motherboard of the refreshed Sony PlayStation 5 and built a new 3D-printed case around it. He also completely remade the cooling system, opting to custom bend six heat pipes to pipe heat to two more conveniently-shaped, copper heat sinks that are cooled by four tiny, quiet laptop blower fans.

To achieve the custom cooling solution, Perks had to nickel plate the copper contact plate of the heat sink assembly and 3D print custom ducting to redirect airflow from the fans over the power delivery components and through the heat sinks.

This custom work on the cooling solution was all so that the PS5 motherboard could be placed into a slimmer enclosure to accommodate a 4K OLED panel salvaged from an Alienware gaming laptop, giving it some sharp display chops to support the quiet performance. The frame also houses an impressive speaker setup, replete with two 5 W subwoofers for better low-frequency reproduction.

Being that it runs on the exact same hardware — albeit with big changes to the cooling setup — as the standard PlayStation 5, just repackaged in a more compact, portable form factor, there was no way for DIY Perks to power the console without the power brick. To solve this problem, Perks turned to an HD Plex 250 W GaN PSU with sleek, white custom sleeved power cable.  

DIY Perks is known in the maker corner of YouTube for a high level of polish in his projects, largely without losing the accessibility of these projects. The same holds true for his PS5 tablet build — there's nothing overly complex going on in the build apart from perhaps the nickel plating, which requires a desktop power supply.

The result of Perks's PS5: Tablet Edition isn't a device that competes with tiny gaming powerhouses like the Asus ROG Flow X16 (curr. $2,068.99 on Amazon) or ROG Flow Z13 (curr $1,599.99 on Amazon). Rather, it's something that packs everything you need for a portable PlayStation experience into something that fits into a backpack to enjoy with friends without having to lug around a monitor alongside the PS5.