This old TV is perfect for all my consoles

I’ve been slowly putting together a retro game room for no other reason than having an extra bedroom with nothing to do. For the longest time, I had a CRT and a PS2 hooked up in there, but there wasn’t much else, and the room was a bit of a mess. I don’t know what finally spurred me to finish the project, but something did, and I went thrifting for some pieces to fill out the room.

What I hoped to find was a cheap desk or place to sit, but what I ended up coming home with was something far cooler. I snagged an old Insignia TV from a thrift store for $13, and while it’s an LCD, I found that it’s a perfect fit for my older consoles, such as my Xbox 360 and PS3. It’s a model NS-LCD22, and I had a lot of trouble tracking down its original MSRP. This CNET review of the 32-inch model mentions it having a basement price, so I imagine it was a budget-friendly buy for its time.

The main selling point of this TV is that it was manufactured during a time of rapidly changing technology, so it has a variety of inputs, both analog and digital. It has an HDMI port, a composite port, a component port, an S-Video port, and even a VGA port. The downside is that this is a 16:10 TV, so everything I’ve tried on it has small black bars on the top and bottom. I could fix that if I plugged a PC into it, but I want to use this TV for my consoles.

A perfect fit for my needs

Don’t sleep on LCDs

The mid-to-late 2000s were an interesting time when all sorts of formats were clashing with each other. As a wee lad, I didn’t really understand the differences. I still remember playing Halo: Reach on a CRT TV on my Xbox 360, something that I now look back on as strange. For the Xbox 360/PS3 generation, I believe an HDTV is the sweet spot, even if you could hook them up using component cables.

For older consoles, a CRT TV is probably what you should go with, especially when we’re talking about the N64, PS1, and Dreamcast era of consoles. The original Xbox is an interesting one, as it was practically a beefy PC for its time. I’ve found that some games look nice on early LCDs, and while a CRT is still the best option if you have one, plugging your Xbox into an HDTV isn’t a bad choice, either. In the picture above, you can see that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time doesn’t look too bad on the original Xbox.

Now, a TV like this Insignia one has its limits. This particular TV is 1680×1050, but no console I use supports a resolution like that. This makes it so the TV is in a bit of a no man’s land. I hooked up my Xbox Series S to it, and while it works, I can’t imagine it ever being a way I want to experience that console. It’s far more at home with my Xbox 360, but it’s cool that I have a TV that supports every generation of Xbox at once.

Of course, far better TVs have come out, and a budget 1080p one might look better than this does with my Xbox 360 — it’ll certainly look better with my Xbox Series S. The main thing I was excited about with this TV is the sheer number of ports on it, and I can see myself getting a lot of mileage from it. It even has a dedicated speaker on it at the bottom, something modern TVs can’t say. While the black bars may have been distracting at first, I got used to them fast.