Unico Nova Blast - New HD Candy Cab

[jimmerd]

£999 + £100-200 shipping to UK/EU and various other regions.

https://www.unico-usa.com/products/nova ... p-and-base

Jamma harness + PC input/HDMI.

I would personally prefer 16:9 @ 1920x1080 rather than the 4:3 @ 1440 x 1080, but can see why they went for that on this model.

This could be popular given its separates into two parts and is lightweight.

[jimmerd]

What do we think then?

Seems a decent effort to me, I listened to an interview with the CEO and he seemed to be genuinely interested in the products quality and was knowledgeable on the arcade environment.

Metal construction and self assembly semi kit form, which is handy. They can be used in semi-commercial environments coin mech etc.

I'm tempted to get one as it would fit in the loft

[NASguy]

I was waiting for someone to make something like this. Will come down to if the monitor is **** or not with lag/ghosting, or how fast the metal panels take a **** from being pounded on or screws boring out. I will have no use for it as long as my Astro City runs, but maybe someday. I agree about the 16:9 I would much prefer one of those models

[arcnl]

If i had a snackbar or similar commercial space to put a cab in i could be interested in something like this. For home use, i personally have no use for it and i don't see the use for it either. It doesn't have the appeal of an /actual/ gamecenter cab like a vewlix, and for the price you could get a much better setup to play games at home.

[bloodhokuto]

I really like this, if I didnt have any cabs as I only really play retro stuff I would get this over a Vewlix even.

[Pete]

Arcade1Up candy edition

Looks nice but expensive.

[emphatic]

It looks perfect if you can't fit a CRT cabinet in your home and has the money to spend.

[NASguy]

I wonder how much that thing wobbles, bet it doesn't stand up to feverish button mashers, the metal is thin as hell, and the feet on it look a bit awful. Looks good in videos, but can be very deceiving. The price does seem mental to me now, I'd rather put 1k on a new OLED screen.

[jimmerd]

From what I understand it comes with feet and wheels and you can choose which (or maybe both) that you wish to install.

I believe the feet are there to limit any wobble. In an unsupervised commercial environment, yes probably somebody will flip the poor thing over or attempt to pick it up and walk out with it.

Unico has been making the 4:3 aspect 'drop in' replacements for CRT monitors for a while now which they state are custom manufactured 'medical grade' panels and with the Nova Blast having the latest 'PRO' revision. The lack of performance specifications for the monitor is an area of concern .. given the price point I would I assume it's just going to be 8-bit colour with an 'acceptable' response time. Question of how acceptable remains to be answered.

It is expensive, but when you add up the cost of the panels, monitor, power supply, harness and so on it's not too bad and I guess you do save a little money on shipping as it comes in two big boxes via a regular parcel delivery rather than needing a container/specialist courier.

Not wishing to hype them up too much at this stage without trying one out, however it is interesting to see new joystick cabinets coming to market as the traditional arcade manufactures are not making too many at the moment.

[NASguy]

The only compliment I can give it is that is doesn't use the god awful MDF type material. But like you said I bet someone could walk off with one of those things if it wasn't security chained to something. Could definitely just steal boards off the back of it at some type of meetup. Would be worth puttint a slam of metal in the base or maybe line the sides with weights.

I don't see any way those monitors are gaming friendly, as you say good enough maybe, they are probably Alibaba type panels. I will be in the same boat someday if my Astro monitor goes. I'm not ever selling my cab so I would drop something in it.

[jimmerd]

To be fair to them - they do say the Phoenix monitor series are custom designed/ordered for Unico since there was a big demand for a 26"/19"/17" 4:3 panel suitable for gaming rather than Microsoft Office.

[NASguy]

I wish I could still buy a quality 4:3 I'd have one right now. As is I still rock 16:10 PC monitors

[o1s1n]

Not a fan of them on their bases as I think the dimensions look a bit off, but have to say they do look very nice as big bartops. Screen is a great size.

Wonder how some CRT shaders would look on those LCDs.

[NASguy]

They do look much better as a bartop, if you actually have something to put it on (I don't).

[jimmerd]

In the interest of keeping the thread upto date;

I've read that delivery has been pushed back a few months to make some improvements/fixes.

Change the base from a single to three separate entry doors, for coin mech,bucket and pcb - like the blast city.
headphone input moved to one on the left and right side of control panel - rather than being in the middle.
Jamma I/O updated to support more inputs / range of kick harness.
Monitor firmware update to solve issue with image alignment/ cropping with some resolutions used on Midway PCB's.

[NASguy]

I think they should sell a half size version also with a smaller LCD, like a Capcom Qute