Handheld tv's

[Retrogames]

My biggest ever waste of money... a Casio handheld portable TV. I paid £75 and thought I'd be able to stroll around watching Neighbours and the rest of it. I hadn't realized that tv signals were so poor- half an hour of trying to stand in a position that would acutally get some sort of signal and I went and swapped it for a Gameboy. It's funny to see people still trying to sell these for a fiver at the car booters when they can't even pick up tv any more!

[Powdered toast man]

Re: Handheld TVs

Yes, I had one back in the early 90's. I sold my entire Scalextric collection to buy it. It cost around £80 from Comet(when it was a small shop in the high street). The batteries only lasted for an hour before the screen turned green and then died. It got put into a drawer and forgotten after the novelty wore off. It was a Casio. I think it was a TV-430 or something similar. It came in a big black and grey box.

[sixtyten]

Re: Handheld TVs

Yep, another sucker here..
My cousin had one of the large box radios with a 3 inch B&W screen in the early 80's at Uni, and that had a great picture, due to the huge aerial, but I later bought the Casio handheld TV-880, which was appalling...
dreadful little LCD screen, and rarely got a signal. The one my cousin had must have had an actual CRT in it.
Seems strange that just under 20 years down the line, I can now watch near HQ TV on my phone, anywhere

[Richard1978]

Re: Handheld tv's

I remember the first handheld TV's appearing at the end of the 1980's, but never knew anyone with one.

One of my friends had a ghetto blaster with a tiny TV screen in the top, I can't remember how good the picture was.

The Sega Game Gear had an TV tuner as an accessory.

[sixtyten]

Re: Handheld tv's

The Sega Game Gear Tv Tuner was appalling too.. almost exactly like the Casio.
That was another waste of money Though I did like the Game Gear.
Shame it never had as addictive or the same amount of titles the Game Boy had

[Sly]

Re: Handheld tv's

I remember my mate in school buying a handheld tv for World Cup 98. It was one of the biggest laughs I've ever had, it was chronically bad. It's picture was horrific, except for whenever you rested the antenna on certain radiators. It must have acted like a signal booster. lol

[sixtyten]

Re: Handheld tv's

This is a good site for retro novelty gear

http://www.dustygizmos.com/arcpages/arcradio.htm

[Sly]

Re: Handheld tv's

My friend had one of those TV radio things pictured in that link.

[darren]

Re: Handheld tv's

My biggest ever waste of money... a Casio handheld portable TV. I paid £75 and thought I'd be able to stroll around watching Neighbours and the rest of it. I hadn't realized that tv signals were so poor- half an hour of trying to stand in a position that would acutally get some sort of signal and I went and swapped it for a Gameboy. It's funny to see people still trying to sell these for a fiver at the car booters when they can't even pick up tv any more!

never knew they did such things as handheld tv's back in the day.
but yes i can imagine how hard it would have been to get a good reception.

[Trickyvee]

Re: Handheld tv's

My dad got hold of a casio one 'off the back of a lorry' in the early 90's. I remember watching Wimbledon on it one summer while sitting in the garden, but the novelty quickly wore off.

[darren]

Re: Handheld tv's

My dad got hold of a casio one 'off the back of a lorry' in the early 90's. I remember watching Wimbledon on it one summer while sitting in the garden, but the novelty quickly wore off.

What did u not like about it mate.
too small a screen.

[Retrogames]

Re: Handheld tv's

Funny how we are used to such big tvs now, the mrs is saying we should change our 40" for a 50", I keep on pointing out that i'd never watched a tv bigger than 20" before I was 30!

[Trickyvee]

Re: Handheld tv's

What did u not like about it mate.
too small a screen.

I didn't dislike it but really I didn't feel the need to watch TV away from the house anyway, so the concept was a bit lost on me.

[Llamarama]

Re: Handheld tv's

My dad has one, Casio TV-470. My mam bought him it when she was pregnant with me, so my dad didn't miss England Vs. Wales in the 5 nations! Thanks dad...

[NaughtyVicar]

Re: Handheld tv's

A lad used to have one of these in school. He would bring it in and we would huddle around it at lunchtime trying to get some sort of tv fix. Someone else had the TV adapter for their Sega Gamegear and that was WOW!

We didn't seem to have the signal problems that people described here, I guess we were close to the TV transmitter.