If you ask any retro nerd enthusiast like me what’s the best way to experience classic gaming consoles, they’re always going to start yapping at you about CRTs. And for good reason: CRTs offer zero input latency, variable refresh rate, and the best picture quality for viewing classic games. Many games designed their art around the visual intricacies of these old tube TVs to create transparent effects or blend colors to create detail not present when viewed as sharp pixels.
But CRTs in 2026 come with a lot of problems. They are hard to find and can often be expensive or not in ideal condition. CRTs are also not commercially made anymore (outside of very rare and expensive niches), meaning we now live in a world with a finite supply of them. One day we’re going to run out, and we’re going to need a solution.
Digital shaders have gotten really good as of late, applying post-effects that recreate scanlines, color, and even recreating image-bending around the corners on non-CRT displays. But these exist in the world of emulators and retro scaling devices.
I’ve always wanted to see this taken one step further with a display built from the ground up and designed for retro consoles, something that can accept old input standards and can offer excellent post-effect features that help simulate a CRT. A Retrotink-Monitor if you will.
That is initially what got me excited about the Traveller ULW10 from Unico. This is a portable display housed in a shell that’s designed to look like the classic Sony PVM. To be clear, this is not a CRT. This is an LCD monitor wrapped in cute nostalgic retro packaging. Unico itself is known for creating LCD replacements for arcade cabinets.
I’m under no illusion that this thing would be a 1-to-1 replacement for a CRT. But if it can get close, this could be exactly what I’ve been wanting: a nice middle-ground option for somebody who wants to have a retro experience without the pain of actually getting and maintaining a proper CRT.
Unico has a Kickstarter where it’s taking preorders for the ULW10. I got a chance to check out a pre-production sample unit that they sent over.
Unfortunately, I found my time with the Traveller to be disappointing, and I’m struggling to find what its target audience is. The Traveller is neither accessible enough for a casual audience, nor is it premium enough for retro enthusiasts with an eye for detail and authenticity.
The coolest and most appealing thing about the Traveller by far is its Sony PVM-inspired shell. They even have knobs on the front for adjusting volume, as well as color. It’s neat and helps to sell the nostalgic analogue vibe.
Because the Traveller has an LCD instead of a massive CRT inside it, most of the inside is hollow. This makes it much lighter then a real Sony PVM, which is annoyingly heavy. There is a rear hatch you can open up so you can put whatever console you have in there to make it easier to carry everything around. I guess that’s where the term “Traveller” comes from. It’s a little goofy and I can’t imagine most people would regularly move this thing around, but there’s something to be said for the idea of bringing it over to a friend’s house or the fast food parking lot for some Melty Blood matches.
When it comes to I/O you have three input options: HDMI, VGA, and RGBS. That’s it. No composite, component, or S-video. This was the first confusing aspect of the Traveller for me. It doesn’t help that initially I thought there were composite and component inputs in the back but that is, in fact, RGBS.
RGB is a video standard that provides a very high-quality signal and is supported on most retro consoles, making it very popular with retro enthusiasts. It’s most commonly utilized with SCART connectors. It was also not really a thing in North America. Our consoles most commonly used composite, s-video, and eventually component. And even though component cables look like they could plug into the RGBS ports, they are not the same thing.
I reached out to Unico about this, and their spokesperson David McIntosh told me, “standard composite will be supported on future models currently in development but they are unable to support it for this release.”
On paper, I understand why Unico went with RGBS due to its high-quality output, but I think this is a huge misstep. Only retro enthusiasts are going to have or understand RGBS (and even in my case, all my cables are SCART, meaning I would need an adapter). The more casual person who just wants to play their PS2 is going to be confused when their cables don’t work and will be annoyed that they have to buy new ones.
As a result, if you plan to buy the current model of the Traveller with hopes to plug in your old console, you’re out of luck unless you already have or buy new RGBS cables.
But what about the display itself? I’m admittedly not an expert when it comes to reviewing or measuring the quality of displays, so I’m gonna take a layman’s approach here. It is… fine. From my eyes, it looks like a very inoffensive LCD screen. It’s not particularly impressive looking but also not awful. Games look exactly how you’d expect on an LCD.
But “fine” in this case is disappointing because of what the Traveller intentionally draws comparison to: a real CRT. Even the best-looking modern displays would face a tough challenge on that front because CRTs can do things modern displays simply can’t. The Traveller’s display sits in this unfortunate middle, where it lacks the benefits of a CRT and doesn’t have any of the visual upsides of a high-end modern TV either.
This is where scanline shaders or other post-processing effects could have provided an advantage for the Traveller. Go all-in on creating an illusion of a CRT screen would provide an edge over LCDs. Unfortunately, none of this is present, and the Traveller presents its image raw. The Traveller may offer a nostalgic retro vibe with its CRT-inspired appearance, but its screen offers no such thing, and that unfortunately breaks its charm pretty quickly.
If your interest in buying the Traveller is to get an authentic and great-looking retro gaming experience, you’re much better off sticking with the many excellent retro scalers out there. Offerings like RetroTINK or the Pixel FX Morph will provide a whole host of post-processing customization for your image, as well as accept more inputs like composite and component, and they can connect to any display rather than being locked to a small built-in screen.
It’s a shame, because I still believe in the idea of an all-in-one monitor built for retro gaming. It just needs to provide better input support, and the addition of shaders and post-processing effects would go a long way to better simulating the vibe of a CRT. Unfortunately, this initial iteration falls into a middle ground that doesn’t fully satisfy casual users or retro enthusiasts. What you’re really buying is what the manual describes as a “10.4-inch tech art piece” for your shelf: something you’d look at, but not actually want to game on.
