After being shunned for plasma and LCD in the 2000s, CRT TVs are once again desirable. The only issue is that while retro gamers have spent the past decade hunting down working tubes and keeping them in the home, there’s now a shortage after that initial household cathode ray cull. Yes, that means there’s a big old gap in the market now that tube sets are all the rage again, so I’m not surprised there’s now a faux Sony PVM on Kickstarter.
Here’s the thing: while the TRAVELLER-ULW10 by Unico looks like a CRT, specifically an ultra-desirable Sony Trinitron PVM, it’s basically just a 4:3 LCD. The idea is that by making something with an aspect ratio that matches most of the best retro consoles and the right inputs to boot, you’ll be able to “relive the glory days of console gaming”.
If that sounds familiar, it’s likely because Unico, an arcade hardware maker founded in 2019, isn’t the only company pitching a CRT revival. Back in January, a startup by the name of RetroBox promised to bring back the “VHS combo TV”, but the faux portable tube set has yet to land. You may have also scrolled past other LCD-based Sony PVM remakes on social media by Retrooldtech, which have a very similar vibe to the “new” TRAVELLER-ULW10.
All these screens, including the Unico TRAVELLER-ULW10, will save you the trouble of figuring out how to connect retro consoles to modern TVs. I’d love to gulp down the proverbial Kool-Aid and believe that this latest pseudo-tube will actually emulate the look and feel of a cathode-ray tube set, but I suspect there’s nothing particularly special lurking inside the box.
It doesn’t help that Unico avoids delving into actual specs or letting you see what’s powering that 10-inch 4:3 LCD display. Even the cheesy lifestyle marketing is AI-generated, and while that’s majorly off-putting in its own right, it also makes the screen look far larger than it actually is in some images. All of that, paired with no insights into the tech itself, leads me to believe we’re looking at a box that won’t do anything specific to combat the cons of using old consoles with new displays.
That’s not to say the TRAVELLER-ULW10 won’t provide you with somewhere to ram your retro cables, as it’ll apparently boast RGB and VGA input alongside HDMI for modern consoles. It could be using something similar to a GBS-C upscaler inside ($89.90 at Amazon, FYI), but if it goes down that route, it will also have to include an extra transcoder for composite-only systems like the NES and N64.
I should note that getting a GBS-C or any other dedicated upscaler in there is a best-case scenario. It could very well be using a cheap HDMI adapter with all the relevant ports, meaning you’d then have to deal with input lag and graphical quirks like artificing. All I can do is speculate since the actual main board is a mystery, and being able to pop your console in the leftover void is pretty neat, but I’ve been laughing for five solid minutes at the fact there are no speakers behind the side grills in the promo video.
It’s my job to help you easily play retro consoles in the modern age authentically, and solid modern alternatives to CRT TVs would ease my burden. It’s for that reason that I hope the Unico TRAVELLER-ULW10 delivers everything it’s promising and more, but the issue is that the company hasn’t explicitly detailed what it wants to achieve beyond a virtual 360 demo and rendered ideas (I suspect Nintendo didn’t grant permission for the NES games featured in the former).
Keep in mind this is a pre-launch page, so we’ll hopefully find out more about the TRAVELLER-ULW10 in a grand reveal. So far, the Kickstarter only has six backers, which makes sense given the lack of information and AI-generated marketing. Simply put, Unico really needs more than a 10-inch 4:3 display to emulate the look of CRT tech, and I’m really hoping it doesn’t just use a cheap AliExpress security camera screen at its core.
Check out how to play PS2 games if you’re trying to hook up Sony’s legendary system.