The best Atari 2600 to play

[Tetrisero]

Hi everyone:

I' ve been collecting videogames for 4 years, and I think it's time to buy an Atari, so I wanted to ask which do you think is the best Atari 2600 model to just play.

Greetings and thank you.

[Van Halbgott]

I think it depends on what sounds good to own as an Atari device.

 

The 2600 has a black model that I own dubbed the ‘Darth Vader’ model but there are also the woodgrain versions including the one with six switches compared to four on mine.

 

Either way, you can’t go wrong.

[hizzy]

I hope some of the veterans chime in - I have pretty much all of the Atari 2600 variants. I would say a light sixer is best. Build quality is fine, it's great having all the switches at hand and the picture quality through RF is very nice. It's just a solid all around machine. My daily use Atari is a Sears Heavy Sixer. It's solid, the switches are super smooth, the colors pop. The RF is okay. It might just be me, but I really like the RF output on the light sixer.  When you've collected long enough, you'll have waaay more Atari consoles than you ever thought you would have and you will appreciate them all.

[+sramirez2008]

On 7/14/2024 at 5:40 PM, hizzy said:

When you've collected long enough, you'll have waaay more Atari consoles than you ever thought you would have and you will appreciate them all.

Truer words were never spoken. In my collection, my best unmodded consoles are my Sears heavy sixer, my Sunnyvale light sixer and my promotional Vader. I also have a 2800 and Sears Video Arcade II (both unmodded) with excellent RF output, but both of those consoles are costlier than the 6 or 4 switch models.
 

I’ve been collecting consoles since 2008, so most of mine were pretty cheap when I purchased them. 
 

I love the wood grain / walnut models myself, but my daily driver is an S-Video modded 7800. 

[English Invader]

If you want the real deal, it needs to be a Woody.  The Junior model isn't in any way deficient but it was a cost-reduced version cobbled together to rebrand the system as a bargain basement family console i.e. Why spend £100 on a Nintendo and Super Mario when you can buy an Atari with a 32-in-1 cartridge for £50?

 

I was a victim of this marketing in Christmas 1991.  As a 10 year old boy, it was very depressing to have such an outdated console when there was so much more going on elsewhere at the time.  As far as the High Street was concerned, the 2600 was dead commercially and there wasn't a local shop to be found that sold 2600 games - you were stuck with 32-in-1 fare like Freeway and Bowling.  It was very much a stereo with no hit records.  A few months later, my parents did the decent thing and bought a Sega Mega Drive.

 

Many years later, I found the system on my own and grew to love it.  The stark simplicity I used to loathe as a child became one of its most attractive features.

 

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that the Woody and the Jr are representative of two very different experiences of the 2600.  The former is the VCS in its heyday and the latter is the arse end of 80s commercialism.

 

  

[Bomberman94]

My daily driver is a light sixer but still looking for a PAL heavy sixer…

 

 

[ChopperCommando]

On 7/12/2024 at 1:49 PM, Tetrisero said:

....which do you think is the best Atari 2600 model to just play.

.

If you're just wanting to play?  A 2600+ will be the easiest option for that.

[Maztr_0n]

depends, probably a 2600+ since i feel like getting one will allow you to expand to 7800 in the future or to just casually play, plus the video just looks... great! or perhaps standalone a 7800 unless you wanna play the incompatible 2600 games, also i dont know all the names of the variants, i only learned that there was a light sixer through the melody nosurname video about atari...

[+sramirez2008]

List of variants here.

[The Mr. Video]

On 7/12/2024 at 1:49 PM, Tetrisero said:

Hi everyone:

I' ve been collecting videogames for 4 years, and I think it's time to buy an Atari, so I wanted to ask which do you think is the best Atari 2600 model to just play.

Greetings and thank you.

When you're starting out, you may want to go for a 4 switch or a jr. 7800s have unfortunately gone up in price, so they may be a no-go. The only model I would not recommend starting out with would be the Coleco Gemini due to the solder joints frequently going bad.