Summary
- CRTs are collectible now, but don’t pay for one unless you’ll use it often.
- They’re heavy, bulky, and prone to failure; repairs are risky and getting harder to support.
- I don’t think the CRT craze will last — fewer machines remain and modern gear favors HDMI.
I remember a time when you couldn’t get rid of a CRT TV fast enough. It got to a point where thrift stores flat out stopped selling them. It was near impossible to get rid of them, but now the tides have shifted. What was once garbage is now a collectible. It’s not uncommon to see people selling CRT TVs on Facebook Marketplace of eBay for hundreds of dollars now — especially if they are Sony Trinitrons.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the craze. I have three CRT TVs myself, but the difference is I didn’t pay anything for them. There’s no way I would’ve had any of these TVs if I had to pay for them. They are heavy, take up tons of space, and the worst things of all — they are old. Once these TVs break, and many of them are doing so each day, there’s not a whole lot you can do to fix them.
While these are all the craze now, and many people are looking to get their hands on them, I don’t think it’s all that beneficial for you to seek one out and buy one. Maybe it’s because I already have a few, but I don’t see why you’d want to go out of your way and spend money on a decades-old TV.
These TVs are nice, but not that nice
How often are you really using one?
Take it from me, as a person who has a Raspberry Pi hooked up to a CRT TV to emulate retro games. It’s a fun novelty to have, but I don’t get nearly as much use out of it as I do my Xbox or PC. I know there are many people who only play retro games, and that makes these TVs worthwhile. The draw to a CRT TV and retro games is the ability to play on the hardware as it was intended. It’s no secret that a Super Nintendo looks quite bad on a modern TV. I fully understand that, but with so many options available today, such as Retrotink and filters, I don’t see a reason to spend time tracking down a CRT TV.
If you find one in the garbage, by all means pick it up, but please don’t spend $100 on one of these unless you’re absolutely convinced you’ll be using it often. VHS tapes look pretty bad too, so I’d rule those out if you plan to do that. With these TVs being so old at this point, and some even being several decades old, they are going to fail sooner rather than later. The issue with many old pieces of technology is that there’s nobody around to fix them for you, so you have to take matters into your own hands.
It’s fun to learn a new hobby and fix old electronics. I had to remove a capacitor from my original Xbox, and I reshelled my Game Boy Advance and gave it a new screen — but those are easy to work with. Many old electronics don’t have a lot going on, so a quick YouTube video teaches you everything you need to know. Unfortunately, fixing a CRT TV that stopped working is not as easy. It’s also really dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing due to potential electrical discharge. If you’re looking for a new hobby, this is certainly one to pick up, but I don’t know how long it’d take you to bear fruit.
A lot of old tech is booming, but there’s a reason
I can’t see this lasting
There are a lot of things from the past making a resurgence today. Vinyl records are massive, and even cassette tapes are making a comeback in some areas. A big reason behind this is that artists like Taylor Swift are releasing exclusive variants that appeal to collectors. Many people purchase records without a way to play them, solely for collectible reasons.
For CRT TVs, it’s the opposite. If you’re looking for one of these TVs, it’s typically with the intent of using it. That was my idea, but it didn’t take long for me to discover a plethora of issues with these TVs. The big one I ran into is that they are so bulky, and I don’t have a good place to put one. The only one I have hooked up right now is sitting on my basement’s wet bar, and it’s taking up a huge chunk of space. It’s not an ideal placement, but I don’t have anywhere better at the moment.
I set one up in a spare bedroom whenever I want to play a retro console, and it’s a time-consuming process that requires me to ditch my current TV in the space and replace it with a CRT TV. It’s a whole process, and I’d rather find different ways to play my games. Luckily, the Nintendo Switch 2 is making that more of a possibility each day with the growing Nintendo Switch Online category. No, it doesn’t replicate the same feeling, but it’s close enough for me.
A major difference between old tech like CRT TVs and old tech like vinyl is accessibility. You can go to Amazon and buy a player to play your vinyl record today. These are still manufactured today, and it’s easy to get your hands on one. CRT TVs don’t have this luxury, and that might be why modern options aren’t supporting them.
The NES Classic and SNES Classic are two devices you’d think would plug right into a CRT TV, but they shipped only with HDMI hookups. Atari has always been releasing new versions of retro consoles, but they only have HDMI support as well. These are clear examples where having the ability to connect to a CRT TV natively would’ve been nice, but that’s not the case.
While CRT TVs are riding a wave of popularity today, I don’t think they will grow much larger than they are right now. There are too many factors working against them, and unless somebody puts them back into manufacturing, there will be fewer and fewer each passing year.
