Because of smartphones, pocket TVs were never a thing.
As a kid I imagined the future as being able to hold a TV in your pocket, and flying skateboards. For the latter I guess electric scooters will have to do
I thought it was random as fuck when I worked at Walmart, I was asked to clean out the traps in the freezer (like a liquid channel for spills) and I found a pocket TV from the 90's stuffed in there, still in the packaging. This was only a few years ago; that thing had to have been in there for at least 2 decades.
I had one that had the same form factor as a gameboy. It was black, the screen had a resolution so tiny you could not really make anything out, and it was almost impossible to get a stable signal. But I loved it when I was 12 years old, because I was only allowed to watch tv for an hour every day, and nobody knew I had that tiny TV which I bought from the money I made delivering flowers.
I still have it in a box somewhere.
There absolutely were pocket TV's. As a kid, even, I owned two of them. They are now of course functionally useless because they predate the switch to digital television by a significant margin. Both of mine were Realistic brand ones, which was an in store label for Radio Shack. Color LCD displays, telescoping antenna, and they ran off of 4 AA batteries. They were about the size of an OG Gameboy or a large Walkman.
I might even still have one in a box of tech junk somewhere. I believe the second one was a Realistic Pocketvision 27.
You can still buy a portable digital TV. These were always a bit of a stretch for a "pocket" television, more the size of a small tablet but thicker. But they totally did, and still do, exist.
I had a pocket TV back in 2007 or so. It had an antenna and everything. It was a bit bulky and not at all power efficient, though. IIRC it went through 8 AA batteries in about 3 hours.
I’m not sure why you’d want that over a smartphone or even just a small tablet, though.
Also, we have flying skateboards, they’re just prohibitively expensive or not yet being sold. Look up the ArcaBoard (was $20k back in 2015, doesn’t seem to be sold anymore), the Lexus Hoverboard, and the Flyboard Air. Unfortunately if you try to buy a “hoverboard” you’re just gonna end up with an electric scooter
i had several battery operated 'pocket' tvs of various sizes... 80s/90s.. the best being the watchman...
somewhere around 2005 i saw one in a mall, used, for sale. i remember thinking it would only be valuable for a few more months as they were about to switch everything to 'digital broadcast' and it would be completely useless.