480p looks pretty good

That's basically it.

I'm surprised. When it comes to CRTs, I've mostly been operating either at 240p (PS1), 480i (PS2), 720p (Steam Deck), or 1080i (PS5). Outside of that, I've been playing modern PC games in 4:3 at 1600p on a rebranded Diamondtron.

Couple months ago I picked up a cheap monitor, nothing out of the ordinary specs-wise, to replace the Panasonic VHS combo TV I had been using previously with an old Roku that still had composite output. I had been using it with my Steam Deck at 720p and enjoying it.

I hadn't, until recently, used it with the Roku because I only owned a HDMI->VGA adaptor, and when outputting over HDMI the Roku was unable to output in proper 4:3, as it could only do 16:9 resolutions. I figured out how to trick it though by using a second TV with composite input and then plugging in the HDMI cable while the second TV was still plugged in. This lets me do 4:3 480p output over HDMI to the VGA adaptor, and I'm pretty impressed. I can barely tell the difference on this screen size, even text is pretty sharp. I realized then that I've never really experienced 480p natively, at least as an adult. It's always been 480i, which is nowhere near as sharp, or it's been blown up onto a higher resolution, non-CRT screen. Now I'm actually appreciating it as a pretty damn good resolution, and nowhere near as big of a downgrade from 720p as I had expected.

480p, I'm sorry I underestimated you, I wish you had been available on the TVs of my childhood.