I’m going to get letters for this. I love CRTs. The glow, the scanlines, the way certain pixel art was clearly designed for the blur. But the reverence has curdled a bit, and I think it’s worth saying out loud: you do not need a 30-kilogram tube television to enjoy retro games.
What CRTs genuinely do better
Real talk first, because the purists aren’t wrong. CRTs have no input lag, handle low resolutions natively, and the way they blend pixels was part of how a lot of art was meant to look. Light-gun games basically require one. These are real advantages.
Where the cult overreaches
The problem is the implication that anything else is playing it wrong. A good IPS panel with a tasteful scanline shader gets you most of the magic, fits in your pocket, weighs nothing, and doesn’t require you to scour marketplaces for a dying tube and pay a courier a fortune to move it.
Loving CRTs is great. Insisting they’re the only legitimate way to play is gatekeeping in a trench coat.
The handheld angle
The R38S and devices like it are how most people will actually experience these games in 2026 — and that’s a triumph, not a tragedy. A shader on a sharp little screen is accessible joy. A CRT in the corner is a beautiful hobby-within-the-hobby.
My peace offering
Keep your CRT. Cherish it. Just let the rest of us love our handhelds without the asterisk. Both things can be wonderful, and only one of them fits in a coat pocket.