Customer Reviews

Apex GT1417DV 14-Inch Flat-Screen TV/DVD Combo

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The Apex GT1417DV is a terrific bargain. It meets all the criteria for a genuinely great deal (lots of features, good overall design, plenty of functionality), but it's got a few nits that keeps it from leading the class. First, the DVD player is only so-so. Loading time is noticably slower than a stand-alone unit, and reminds me of the DVD player in my PC in terms of startup time and performance. The TV set itself has a slightly soft picture, and the colors on my set lean a lot toward the reds--no matter how much I try to dial back the color shift using the built-in controls. The picture is bright, but the brightness actually causes an overall washed out effect. Reducing the brightness just a little from the factory preset level causes an immediate loss of detail and unacceptable flatness. On the plus side, the convenience of the TV/DVD combo form factor is exceptional. There are no cables to run (which can save you $20-$40 right there), no manuals to read, and no painful setup for the DVD player side of things.

Other than a couple of fairly small concerns, the overall performance of this combo set is good, especially when you factor in the price.

[On side note, I wish Apex would have spent a little more on the remote control; it feels decidedly cheap, the buttons are VERY small, and not all functions are well designed--the DVD controls in particular.]

This TV/DVD combo is perfect for any samll space. I put it in my boy's room and he just loves it. Remote and DVD are very simple to use. In fact my 4 year old can operate the set. Great looking picture to boot. If you decide to purchase, I am sure you will be very pleased.

This unit is great. The picture tube is basically flat and the dvd player in the unit does a great job. For the $$$, this little unit rocks.

I purchesed a Apex 65HDTV a year ago. It never had a day working as Apex promised. The very first day, the remote control had some problem. I called the company so many times, every time I got to spend with somebody in India to go through my info. After doing this for 3 months, they just ask me to ship to remote control to them on my cost, it is not worth the remote control for the shipping cost, what a joke!
Then the whole screen turned to red. I spent almost 3 Months to get a Apex certified contractor in my house (after so many of them I called told me they wouldn't want to work with Apex. Then,
the contractor told me that one part needs to be ordered from Apex to replace the broked one. I have been waiting for the Apex part for more than 4 Months now, and still waiting. I called the contractor so many times, they told me that they called Apex each week to check the part, and it never get shipped.
I am going to trash the TV next week and just let everyone know that Apex has the worst products and services I have ever had.
Don't buy Apex, it is a bad bad company!

I bought this TV a month ago and when it arrived the screen was tinted blue. You could hardly watch the TV because the blue tint was so heavy. Every time I called Apex customer service I was told I was number 15 or 16 in queue to talk to the next available representative. A 2 minute question left me on the phone for 45 minutes waiting for someone to talk to me. When I finally got a hold of someone, she seemed clueless. She told me, "Um I guess you can send it back and we'll see what we can do". So I carry my 33 pound TV down to the UPS store, and pay 35 dollars to ship it back. I am actually writing this while Apex has me on hold...still.

My wife and I spent a couple of hours comparing models in a showroom before deciding to try this low-price leader. We planned to return it if we had any problems at all (as little as a flicker). I am happy to say that this unit exceeded my expectations, both in quality and longevity.

We've had it for over a year. We do not have central air and are in an old, drafty house, so it has seen a broad range of conditions. The picture quality is really good (we're not talking Trinitron here, but it really is quite good), and the audio is just fine. I even use it some nights to play my music CDs. It has played every single DVD we've purchased or rented without a hitch, even playing some with which our older DVD player (also APEX) had problems. We've had the TV/DVD combo for over a year, and I am 100% satisfied with the purchase.

[Note: this TV has a flat screen, but it is tube-based. This is not a flat-panel TV.]

One feature I use regularly is the timer. I have the TV turn on daily at the same time as my alarm (you can schedule an on and off time). It's a nice feature that is probably standard on most models by now. The only improvement I would make to this feature is that it can be set either to "once" or "daily." It would be really nice to have a "weekdays" feature, so I would not have to disable it for the weekends.

I highly recommend this product.

[UPDATE: We had the unit for about four years. It worked fine until one of our kids jammed something inside. Had that not happened, I'm confident we'd still be using it today.]

Bought 3 of these TV's because of the low price.... I thought Oh what the heck... Gotta try them as they may work-out... I was wrong... YOu get what you pay for... Of the 3 TV's in about 4 months time.... 2 of them died... Customer support?! forget it... Wouldn't let me take it to a local Authorized dealer!!! Told me I would have to send them back to the Company at about 35.00 a crack!! Then wait and get it repaired or they would be replaced with REFURBISHED units!!! Not worth the shipping cost and time.... and if I wanted a refurbished TV I would have bought one in the first place.. Customer service reps are robots who don't care about after the sale service. Got to say, when they worked the picture and sound was OK for a cheap TV.... Has been about 10 months now so I opened one TV up to see inside.... "Almost nothing!" Just one 8X10 card..everything is soldered Poor quality inside and out... not built to last in my opnion.... Avoid this junk from APEX... They are running along with the others in producing Junk TV's

As you've no doubt noticed, this is by far one of the lowest-cost TV/DVD combo units out there, and with a nice low-glare flat screen, to boot.

I have had this thing for three days now and have enough hours logged to offer a pre-malfunction (let's hope not) review of the general quality of the unit and it's performance:

Previous reviewers were right about a few things:
- Discs load relatively slowly, on par with a computer drive
- There is that background hum when no sound is being played.

Some things need to be qualified though:
- The unit has a cheap feel: yes, cheap materials but SOLIDLY put together. The case is tight and well made (albeit with cheap plastic), the buttons feel reasonably hearty, etc.

Now, I saw the "3 line notch filter" and "pure flat screen" features and bought this in hopes of getting awesome resolution, etc. out of this unit.

I am neither disappointed nor delighted. Low-level detail in dark areas is not good at all. Black overpowers any subtle details in the shadows.

That said, color is decent and the unit can reach a reasonable level of picture sharpness (I've seen much better, though).

Color balancing, sharpness adjustments, contrast, etc. seem to have a rather limited range of change. Color will go all the way down to black and white, but between there and full saturation, there isn't much play. It won't go to any sort of super-saturated Technicolor lushness. Maybe this is a good thing.

One thing I really like about this unit is it's back panel: most 13" TV/DVD units I was seeing at retail stores only had a single digital coaxial audio out. This has two composite inputs (one has option for S-video) plus an analog output for video and audio (including stereo mixdown for two speakers), plus that digital audio out. Very, very nice.

The unit has a real basic "surround from two speakers" mode, where it just puts the signal out of phase to make sounds sound like they are coming from the sides, but there is zero discrimination to it's method, so voices sound disjointed, as well. Nearly worthless, if you ask me. If it could take each channal and put it in (center channel) or out of phase logically, that would be an ideal solution. Oh well...what can you expect for such a low price?
Trying to watch a widescreen DVD with this thing is a bit of a joke unless you are sitting close. On par with watching a portable DVD player from across the room, sans the portable's LCD resolution...of course this will be the case with any 14" TV screen.

Speakers are nice enough...not tinny or shouty, they are pleasing enough to listen to. Music is pretty good. Not great by any measure, but good. Perfectly acceptable. (I will be using the stereo audio out to stick in my Tivoli Model Two radio, myself)

I am hyper-critical of this stuff and I really appreciate HDTV quality, etc., so maybe take this stuff with a grain of salt.

Other negatives: I notice in certain modes (automatic volume control + surround) when "thumps" happen in music (bass drums, etc.) it jolts the picture with white-line flashes at the time of the thump...like the speakers are jolting the picture tube or something.

All that being said, this is one heck of a deal.

At the end of the day, for $150 I really like this thing and I would definitely do it all over again.

Apex Digital products often fail within the first year. They have horrible customer service, false advertising, and fail to honor their warranties. Please check www.labbb.gov (Better Business Bureau) and search for Apex Digital to see the F rating the better business bureau has given them. Saving 10-15 dollars is not worth the hassle they cause.

ALL THE REVIEWERS FORGET THAT YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. WE BOUGHT TWO APEX TVS TO MOUNT ON BRACKETS OUTSIDE BY THE POOL. WE LIVE IN FLORIDA BY THE BEACH SO WE FIGURED IF THEY WENT BAD IN A YEAR FROM THE SALT AND HUMIDITY THEY WERE CHEAP ENOUGH THAT WE WOULD REPLACE THEM. GUESS WHAT? THEY ARE STILL OPERATING LIKE THE DAY WE BOUGHT THEM AND THEY LOOK AS NEW AS THE DAY WE BOUGHT THEM. WE DIDN'T EVEN BRING THEM IN OR DOWN DURING THE HURRICANES. WE JUST COVERED THEM UP WITH GARBAGE BAGS. AGAIN...FIGURED IN THEY WERE TRASHED AFTER THE STORM THEY WERE CHEAP ENOUGH TO REPLACE. TWO YEARS AND WE ARE COMPLETELY HAPPY!

THE ONLY ONE STAR MINUS IS THE SOUND QUALITY IS A BIT TINNY..BUT AGAIN YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!!! OUR MODELS WERE 20"..JUST SO THE READER KNOWS.