Customer Reviews

Apex GB65HD09W 65-Inch Projection Widescreen HDTV

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I kid you not. I shopped for a hdtv for six months before making the decision to go with the GB65HD09W. I have had the TV for a week now and am very happy! The TV looks better than you see in the pictures. The front is a very cool looking silver and black. And the unit is built well. I was especially happy to see that the top of the TV was large enough to put all of my electronics on. I know that I should move them to a place alittle further from the set but hasn't affected picture quality yet due to jamming from other electronics. Picture quality is just as good as the Rica senium and Samsung and all other sets I looked at. HDTV picture is awesome! I was worried about picture quality from a 65 inch set. Most sets loose quality with size. Not the case here. Compare price to other 65" wide screens. I recomend this unit. Cons: could have better remote. But plan on getting new universal remote anyway

I just purchased this TV on July 15th. I would like to give you my opinion on the whole process from start to finish. How long it takes to arrive to how the picture looks when it's setup. I'll be using Time Warner Digital Cable with an HDTV connection. They only offer a few stations in HD but at least I'll be able to judge a normal digital signal and a HD signal. The TV I'm replacing is a 5 year old 55" Philips purchased. I was going to buy a 65" Sony today at a retail store for over 2k but I thought I would take the gamble. Hopefully it pays off.

!!!! 8/1/03 Update: It arrived 13 days after I ordered. The movers did a great job. Beware; it's a big box! Once it's out of the box it's easy to move - it has wheels. The TV is awesome. I've had it for a week now. I use Time Warner Digital Cable and the picture is great on the digital channels. The TV even improves the nondigital channels! Time Warner offers 4 High Definition channels (HBOhd, ShowTimehd, DiscoveryHD, and ABChd) and I've got to say the picture is outstanding! Was going to get DirecTV but they charge an arm and a leg for the HD dish and receiver. Time Warner's HD receiver was exchanged for free! The TV has preset viewing modes - movie, vivid, normal, and personal. The preset modes have a washed out look so you will have to adjust the contrast and color to your liking using the onscreen display - see my settings below. I bought a progressive scan DVD player and it displays an excellent picture. The detail is amazing. I have the HD Cable box connected to the TV using the HD component wires for the 4 HD channels and the normal digital cable connected using an S-Video wire. All the audio is connected to my surround sound receiver. (the tv speakers sound great when used alone). After seeing the picture on other expensive sets at local stores I honestly cannot see a difference besides the price!! Just watched Monday night pre-season football on the HD-ABC channel and it felt like I was right on the field. The detail on the helmets and uniforms just amazed me! At 33, I find myself watching Leave It To Beaver, I Love Lucy, and Sponge Bob, just to experience the huge picture. The only problem with this TV is that you will never get your friends out of the house once they come over! I highly recommend this TV, it's like having a movie theater in your own living room!

Brightness (44)
Contrast (51)
Color (67)
Sharpness (71)
Tint (-4)

I just recieved my 65 in APEX widescreen hdtv to day and I love the picture perfect screen, its like being in the theater but better. It will take time to figure out all the options and the remote, but thats not bad becouse I love to learn new things. I had a regular 60 in Phillips Magnavox tv before so I'm use to a big screen, but the picture on this hdtv is 100% better. This is the third APEX product I have purchased and I think their quality is right up there with the higher priced brand's. between Hatachi for $...and APEX for $...and free shipping from Amazon a savings of $...is great. The picture and sound quality is just as good if not better than the high priced Hatachi so why pay more. The only down fall to this product is my wall unit I bought to place this TV in will have to be modified to fit the larger tv. Also I will have to have one of the tv repair shops in my area apply for becoming a certifed APEX repair men just in case something happens, becouse the closest one at this time is about 50 mile's away. Hope this helps in your decision for your purchase.

Purchased the TV about a week before Christmas. First of all, it arrived in less than 1 week, at the height of the Christmas rush. Hooked it up and have been completely amazed with it. Greenville cable doesn't have HDTV yet, but there are plans for it in the next few months. Have thought about satellite, but not right now. Anyway, even without HD, it's still amazing. I just love the big picture.

It has several screen settings where you can either watch a regular TV signal with the black bars on the side, or stretch it out horizontally. I usually watch with the stretch. Everyone looks a little fat for the first day or two, then you get used to it.

Working the picture in picture (PIP) was a trick with a cable box. You see, with your signal coming in from the wall, into the cable box, then out into the TV, you can only get 1 signal. (This is why you can't watch one thing and tape another thing on your VCR with a digital cable box, like you used to be able to do with "wall cable.") What I had to do was fairly easy. Just buy a cable splitter. Split the signal out of the wall. Run one cord into the cable box, then into the back of the TV. Run the other cable into your VCR. Then, instead of using the coaxial cable to hook your VCR into the TV, use the 3 sound and picture cords (red, white and yellow I think). That way, you have your normal TV signal coming from the digital cable box, and your PIP signal coming from the "wall cable" via your VCR. This was the only way I could think of to make it work, and it works great. I don't know how you'd work PIP with a satellite signal (unless you dedicated 2 receivers to your TV), which is one of the reasons I'm sticking with cable for now. If anyone has any other PIP ideas, please email me.

If you can get PIP working, split screen is amazing. Watching 2 games, each on bigger screens than my old TV is awesome! Can't split the screen into any more windows, though, although I don't think I could get this to work even if it had this feature, unless I went to "wall cable" and stopped using a cable box. It does have a feature where you watch one channel on a big screen, with 4 smaller windows on the right which cycle through all the channels. Again, I don't think you can make this work unless you use "wall cable." If you know of a way, please email.

Picture is great, as I said. Sound is equally as good...I usually don't even use my stereo speakers even though I hooked them up because the TV is good enough. I almost simulates a surround sound feel, although I must admit I'm not much of a sound buff.

Don't have a progressive scan DVD player yet, but the picture with my old one looks great to me. I had a guy at Best Buy tell me that the difference between the two is negligible.

Haven't had any encounters with customer service, and hope I don't have too. I've read here that Apex's customer support is so-so, but then again, in reading reviews of other companies, it sounds like this is a universal flaw with all the companies. I've had an Apex DVD player for about 2 or 3 years and have been very happy with it.

Finally, the price was amazing. I looked around for a couple of weeks at the various stores, and this was the best price I could find by almost $1000!!!! Also, take advantage of the Amazon.com VISA where you get $30 off, a couple of $25 gift certificates, and most importantly, no interest for 12 months.

Email if you have questions.

Michael J. Bogle
michaeljbogle@yahoo.com

Watching PBS in HD 1080i right now, and the picture is spectacular. Bright, clear, really, really good!

Make sure you hook this up to a digital TV HD set top box in order to really be blown away, or failing that, a progressive scan DVD player, using component inputs.Anything less, and you will be just amplifying a cruddy signal to a really big size (like reading newsprint with a magnifying glass, a big mess!).

Honestly, there are a few small areas of the screen where the convergence is not absolutely perfect, though I plan on having a service come out and professionally adjust it. I can live with it...for the price of this TV.

Other things to be aware of:

Technical specs don't mention that several of the video inputs are shared (either SVideo or Composite, but using 1 disables the other).

Doesn't mention up front that it doesn't natively support 720p mode (it downcoverts it).

Doesn't mention that the PIP and Split screen DO NOT work when using component inputs (What else would you use a 16:9 TV for?)

There is no direct entry button for accessing the different AV inputs... it is painfully slow switching between inputs by having to rotate through all of them, with large delays between each switch.

TV doesn't stay on the input you left in on, when you power it off. Meaning having to rotate through 4 or 5 inputs to get to my HDTV tuner every time I turn the TV on.

Probably doesn't mention that several of the on-screen menus don't function when the set is using component inputs.

Lots of little gotcha's.... keep that in mind.

If you are a hard core videophile, this is probably not the set for you. If you are just getting into HD or even widescreen or projection, this is a great entry level set.

My goal is for this set to get me through the next couple of years, while the price/functionality of truly digital sets become more functional and attractive. I think this set will do just fine for that.

I purchased this TV through Amazon on July 17 and received it on July 29. Like others, what caught my attention on this bad boy was the price. It is half the price of comparable TVs. I was a little nervous having purchased the TV without seeing it first but I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. The first thing one should realize is that this is a really big piece of equipment. Make sure and measure if you have stairs or any tight turns.

The picture quality is simply outstanding. It takes a little adjusting out of the box but once that's done the view is amazing. This is my first HD experience and I am awestruck by the vivid clarity of the HD channels. It's all too easy to get couch-lock with this unit.

Although I use a surround sound system, the built-in sound is exceptional. Watching a progressive scan DVD with the surround sound is a true theatrical experience.

The remote is a little complicated. Many of the buttons have dual purposes so I'm still referring to the instructions from time to time. But the features are incredible. Split screen viewing will come in handy during football season. It's like getting 2 TVs for the price of 1!

I got this TV and initially was worried due to DVD playback problems. The DVD movies looked dull and artifacts (ie: ghosts) appeared in darker sceens. I turned down the birghtness and this helped with the ghosts but made the picture even more dull. I decided to give a progressive scan DVD a try. .... Be sure yours has component out! When I tried the progressive scan for the first time using S-Video out, the ghosts went away but the pic was still a little dull. Then I tried the component out! WOW - what a difference! The reds are bright! The Blues as dark and blacks are truly black! In short use a progressive DVD with component out! As for regular networld TV, the non HDTV channels look about as bad a a 65 inch tv that is not HDTV but the HDTV channels are unbelievable! Right now comcast only offers 16 HDTV channels in my area but more are coming by the end of summer! HDTV is here! The main channel I care about is Comcast Sports Networlk and thats in HDTV!!!! Too bad the sixers season is over. Cant wait for the eagles to start!

On a side note, component out is a standardized signal. This means the TV can adjust its picture to this standard and the screen is full. No more bars on the top or side regardless or the old term "format", meaning 4:3 or 16:9. Remember this, regular digital cable boxes dont have component out. You will need a box for HDTV. Digatal cable is not HDTV.

I had been looking at this television for a while now, but decided to finally pull the trigger on the last price drop. I do not regret the decision. A huge box was delivered to my house 5 days after I placed the order with Amazon. We actually had to take the box off to fit it through the door. This television is amazing. The box itself does not look or feel cheap (a concern i had with previous Apex products). Watching movies with a progressive scan DVD player and surround sound is a theatric experience miles above my old 32inch setup. I hooked up my Xbox and the games look amazing in 480p and in 1 case, 1080i (yeah, I know you aren't suppose to play games on projection screen telly's). The picture quality is comparable to other HDTV's I've seen (and at half the cost), provided you set it up correctly (just look online).

tried to update my review last weekend, but it hasn't recorded yet.
The picture on this tv is great, even without the DTV box. I have Dish Network and they are so very back ordered on the box, but until then it is the clearest television I have owned.
Eagle USA delivered and they are great.
This TV is actually made by Chang Hong in China and the specs closely resemble the Samsung 65".
Sorry to see the price back up with only Target selling this product.
I did have to call to APEX because the projecter displays the pic slightly high on the right, but that is unoticable unless you have a lot of script showing. Their phone was busy a lot but on the third attempt I did get through and they are suppose to be calling back to schedule a repairman.
This is a high quality tv with no blurring and plenty of options.
Waiting and wondering why it hadn't shipped when it stated usually ships in 24 hours was the only worry so far. Total time 2/8-2/22 into my living room and unboxed.

Had the TV in home for about a week now. So far just a wonderful TV straight out of the box. Hard to pass up a $1400 price!!! Widescreen DVD come alive and regular TV programming takes on a whole new experience. Had been looking at other compariable models from Sony and the like, but with these in the $2K price range as well as another $400+ for like an extended Warranty decided would take a chance on the Apex. With a shade over $100 for an additional 4-Year RepairMaster Extended Warranty Policy, can't beat ~$1500 for this TV.

Only minor complaint that can't totally fault Amazon for was the shipping situation. I live in the SW Colorado region and the TV was shipped via Eagle Global Logistics from Atlanta to Denver and Eagle had to farm this out to local RAC Transport to deliver. Well RAC doesn't do in home delivery so ended up having to have a couple friends come down to a location with a trailer to pickup the set and we carted it back home. After lugging the TV (yes at 380 shipping pounds its quite large) up the stairs and into the home, once out of the box quite easy to move around. As believe will fall to Amazon's credit (once I see it finally appear on my credit card as they promised), after I contacted the customer service and expressed my unhappiness at not being provided the In-Home Delivery as their policy for large screen television holds, they agreed to credit me back the shipping charges for the purchase. Can't ask for more than that !