Plays everything (well almost)

Very poor picture quality
Poor quality control
Poor quality of the remote
Looks butt ugly
No component video output

I only had this player for 3 days. Compared to the early Toshiba the video was terrible.

Faults
Once every second there was a burst of digital noise filling up the background. This pulsing was unnacceptable
Overall playback quality was also very low. Noise in almost every frame. The "Green Mile" was a mess. Only Titanic played well.
Came with several other faults out of the box including repowering itself to "on" after being put into sleep mode.

Audio
Pretty good. Maybe not as dynamic as the Tosh on dolby digital.

Personally I wont be bothering with these Chinese machines again. I've sent it back and gone for a Panasonic low end machine.

Forget the features for just US$50 more you can buy much better

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba SD2006

-Very cheap
-Can play MP3s, VCDs, etc.
-Apex's with the new N4 firmware can play all seamless branching disks. Plus other problems are fixed.

-There is pixellation in nearly all titles. Not major pixellation but pretty annoying.
-Lip sync troubles. I've found problems with the lip sync with many titles. Most of the time it can be fixed, but you shouldn't have to deal with it so much.

I don't hate the Apex. It has allowed me to watch a lot of my favorite movies on DVD without having to pay a whole bunch. Unfortunately, because I was so excited to get a DVD player and couldn't wait to save some more money, I bought the Apex without thinking a whole lot about the decision. I really wish I just had waited a couple more weeks and bought a player like the Toshiba SD-1200 which was a bit more but got much better reviews.

For a first-time DVD-buyer, I guess the Apex is sufficient. But don't think it's gonna satisfy you for long. The video quality is just not at the level of most other DVD players. I like the audio a lot but the video is a big problem. I would recommend just buying a different player or at least to expect to upgrade in the near future. Still, the Apex does quite a bit for the price.

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Apex is my first DVD player.

Plays MP3's, Good Picture & Sound Quality

Quality could be better - but for $99 after $50 in store rebate who could complain.

This is for the AD-660 model. I have no complaints with this unit. For the price it cannot be beat. Go out and buy one today or save up for an extra $200 for an Onkyo DVD.

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Onkyo 575 Receiver, Cerwin Vega VS120 Speakers, Sony 200 CD Changer, Solid (B&W) S100 Surround Speakers

none!

everything

my third one! they all suck! the video quality simply blows. it constantly fades from light to dark and the top part of the screen sometimes fades right.. Don't buy it! another trip to circuit crap to return another one.. I'm going to stop being cheap and buy a real player. if you happened to have gotten one of these that works. good for you. If I can't get one after 3 trys I give up.

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none

Plays every disk format, all the outputs one is likely to need/use, Karaoke capable, price.

Poor picture and audio quality, looks awful, on screen menu sucks, remote sucks.

I bought this unit because it was very cheap and was capable of playing Karaoke DVD's. I've owned a Pioneer LD player for years which has Karaoke and figured this was a chep way to make the "upgrade" to DVD. I hook it up and put in a DVD I rented and was disappointed from the start. The picture was grainy with poor color saturation and there were several drop outs throughout the movie. My old Pioneer is much better. The sound was worse in performance than the video. I played a CD (unit was hooked up using the 2 channel RCA outputs for audio, and the super video connection for video) and the sound was absolutely terrible. Thin, shrill, no bass, etc. It was just awful. I figure what the heck, I'll just use this one for Karaoke which is why I bought it to start with. I put on one of the new DVD Karaoke's I bought, hook up the mike and and start to sing, A couple of second later my voice comes through. This happend every time you stopped singing and then started again. As long as you kept singing everything was cool, but when you stopped there was a delay before the audio kicked in again. This, couple with the terrible audio made it unusable for Karaoke as well. Needless to say I boxed it up and couldn't return it fast enough. Just bought me a Panasonic RV-30 and havn't hooked it up yet, but if it's as good as what I've read then I will buy me one of the outboard units Pioneer makes that allows you to add Karaoke to any machine and hopefully will be in business. I hope there will be a way to hook up the outboard unit so I that I don't have to run the signal through it all the time, but will soon find out.

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none

Many good features for the price.

Customer service is the worst. The units don't work.

I was only able to use it a few times until it broke down. Other people I spoke to with the same unit, had to return theres aa well. I'm so disappointed with this unit that offers so much. The features are great, too bad it does'nt work.

Excellent player for the price.

The Lip Sync DESTROYS it.

This is a great little player and the mic inputs on the front are a funny feature that will never be used but show the influence of the excellent chinese culture. I have no greif with the unit. Every MP3/vcd cd and cdrw I have tryed works great. I have no complaints about the picture. (Try hooking it up to an RGB monitor, WOW! Thats like film quality!)

BUT.....

I am the boot camp sargent of consumer electronics and I don't put up with things that are noticeable and nevertheless annoying. THE SYNC IS ALL OFF. You may not notice it at first but it becomes the most annoying thing! To be exact, the picture occures first and the sound comes .33 seconds later (according to some old test equipment my friend has using a vcd with a 2pop on a frame). Thats enough to just bug the hell out of me!

This player had great potential but apex blew it.

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Creative DVD, Sony DVD players.

Plays video, audio and mp3 disks flawlessly, and is a great bargain. Mp3 discs must be encoded so that multiple types of computers are supported, but once that's done, I've recorded as many as 166 audio tracks on one mp3 cd and the playback quality is virtually undistinguishable from cd. I'm a musician of some 30 years, and am also a music producer and find that I'm quite sqatisfied with the quality I get from this product.

Poor graphics as far as the mp3 playlist are concerned. Must be accessed by video screen, no front panel titles. No fast forward or reverse in mp3 mode.

Great product, but there will be better coming soon. The mp3 revolution should prompt more manufacturers to produce units like this, maybe with more features. The price is a major advantage though, and it's a good buy for now.

value for $

slow to load, slow to select cd cuts with front panel buttons

got the first model after loophole closed ,oh well, yes took everything i could throw at it, no probs w/mp3s, no overheating, some skipping library DVDs,some did play when replayed, but very few didnt,COAXIAL digital is the better sound output over optical, see Stereophile year end cable reviews intro, also see Sound and Vision for the fact that the picture is FINE, YOUR CONTRAST and SHARPNESS are too high, factory settings and setting it by eye will mess up the picture,other players took this into account but if youre in the know you know,leave the settings too high and you mess up the intended picture AND your picture will go out of wack eventually as you are driving the thing too hard, cheaper tvs dont help and have poor blacks and THATS when youll see diagonal lines, tried similarly priced models from 3 above, NO REGRETS, returned all 3, loud spinning noises, no mps, no cdr play, this has it ALL for less.

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sony, pioneer, philips

MP3, VCD, SVCD, very good picture quality.

Seamless Branching, Apex q&a department needs some work.

Can't beat it for the price IMO. Great picture quality, plays most DVDs flawlessly. Just stay away from DVD's with seamless branching feature (Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition for example). Can be fixed with firmware upgrade. Who gives a rats ass if the remote is poorly designed (any idiot can press a button) and the menus are ugly, great unit.

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First player (have seen several others however).