Customer Reviews

Apex PD-10 Portable DVD Player with 5.6-Inch LCD Screen

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

We purchased the Apex PD-10 for home and travel use after shopping around. This was the lowest priced player I was able to find and I bought it with the notion of returning it if it didn't perform. I am a radio/tv producer and am quite selective when purchasing a/v products. After a week I am quite impressed. Picture quality is above average, it sounds great hooked up to external speakers, and it has all the features you need and many you'll never use. The internal speakers? Absolutely horrible, as are those on most portable DVD players. The remote is handy, but doesn't work unless you are no more than 5 feet away and pointing it directly at the unit...a drawback for home use. Also, to scroll through DVD options on menus you must use the remote, since there are is no menu button and no track access available on the unit itself--just play, stop and scroll. The battery pack is quite heavy and cumbersome, but still a good option for portability. The on/off switch seems a little flimsy and could break under heavy use. I compensate by using the remote to turn the unit on and off to avoid wear and tear. Overall, this is a great little player and we are enjoying it so far.

We purchased the Apex PD-10 for home and travel use after shopping around. This was the lowest priced player I was able to find and I bought it with the notion of returning it if it didn't perform. I am a radio/tv producer and am quite selective when purchasing a/v products. After a week I am quite impressed. Picture quality is above average, it sounds great hooked up to external speakers, and it has all the features you need and many you'll never use. The internal speakers? Absolutely horrible, as are those on most portable DVD players. The remote is handy, but doesn't work unless you are no more than 5 feet away and pointing it directly at the unit...a drawback for home use. Also, to scroll through DVD options on menus you must use the remote, since there are is no menu button and no track access available on the unit itself--just play, stop and scroll. The battery pack is quite heavy and cumbersome, but still a good option for portability. The on/off switch seems a little flimsy and could break under heavy use. I compensate by using the remote to turn the unit on and off to avoid wear and tear. Overall, this is a great little player and we are enjoying it so far.

This is a nice little DVD player, esp. it cost less than $....
The 5.8 inches screen is ok in size, and the display quality is above average. The contrast, however, is something Apex should work on.
Sound quality is ok when listen via the headphone or hook up to the car stereo (optical link), but the internal speaker does not performs as good as it should be. Grab a good headphone...or it will riun your movie viewing pleasure.
The power doesn't last as long as what it claims - I guess it is because it uses NiHM instead of Lithium battery. So I always rely on the car adapter for road usage.
Ease of use is pretty good, esp. the color and bright buttons under the screen. The off/on/hold swith, however, is hard to switch. I would rather use the remote to turn the player off.
I tried to play DVD, CD-R and also hook it up with a PS2. All runs smoothly.
One last note: Make sure you get this from a store with good return policy. Turns out I have a defected unit because it didn't reponse with I load a disk, and when I hooked it up to external player, the screen is all black and white. So I return to the store and exchange the next day(I did some simple test on the store to make sure I am getting a working one, you may want to do that too).

What can you expect? Just 18 months ago one of these things cost almost a month's after-tax take-home pay, and now it's just some spare change. Of course you won't get Panasonic or Toshiba quality, but that's not what Apex has come to be known for. Like other Apex products, this DVD player works, and delivers quite some value. My biggest gripe is the big battery, which seems to add another 3 pounds to the DVD player.

if youre not aware of the apex brand, perhaps this little device will help you understand: apex and their multiple rebrands sell more dvd players than any other manufacturer in the world. theres one reason why; apex makes stuff cheap-but-functional. this player, like all other apex equipment ive ever tried, fits both those qualifications perfectly.

yes, it gets kinda hot; but does it really get hotter than other portable dvd players; i dunno.

yes, the battery is big; but how often will you really use it; it comes off and stays off easily.

yes, ya gotta use the remote to use mosta the onscreen menu functions; but are 4 on-board menu buttons really worth a difference of $100 or more?

yes, its a 4:3 screen, but small is small; the difference between a 5" and 7" screen image isnt really all that great at this level... plus, youve probably been watching letterboxed movies for years now; this is no different, only smaller.

my bottom line: regardless of the few small compromises one must make to justify this player, you cant argue much about the cost. no other full-featured, fully-fledged portable player can even come close!

Hey, I'm Chad from West Virginia, and I got the Dvd player for a christmas present and I enjoyed using it for road trips and airplane trips. Although, it did have a few minor flaws. The speaker quality wasn't as good as I expected, but it's great for the price. If your going to actually enjoy your movie, I would suggest using some head phones. The battery life is pretty good. It lasts about 3 hours. I wish it would last longer, because you don't get to finish your movie, if its that long. But your in luck, there is a ciggerate lighter adapter which will last as long as you want. The Dvd player is also pretty good for playing Ps2, but for Xbox it turns out black and white and I haven't figured out how to fix that. But for the price, Its a great buy. You can't get any better for the price. I suggest it if your on a budget.

EDITED TO SAY:

Despite giving this a good review shortly after I bought it in late 2003, further experience proves the machine to be faulty and Apex to be a flat-out bad company to deal with.

While the player worked and never got too hot, the battery completely burned out with not much use. It developed a burning electronics smell.

Player screen showed black & white movies in charming, old-fashioned sepia and color movies in Christmasy red/green. Moving the hinged screen up or down might or might not adjust the color, but no guarantees here. Worst of all, the remote broke within a couple months of use. Ummm, the remote controls EVERYTHING. I could only hit play. Good enough...at least I could watch most features. After a year, I decided to spring for a new remote. Twenty-two bucks plus ten for shipping! Bite the bullet. I gave Apex all my shipping information. No remote after a couple of weeks. Call Apex. Oh, we don't have your shipping address. Give it again. Another couple of weeks. Call from Apex: please supply your shipping information. Beleive it or not, I went one more round with these clowns before cancelling and giving the whole kit and kaboodle to my engineer father. Maybe he can figure something out here. In the mean time, I bought a Samsung L-70, which functions beautifully, has a great, crisp screen with consistent colors, weighs almost nothing and is the size of a paperback book. And I haven't needed to use the remote a single time. All that for ten bucks past the Apex PD-10 price.

DON'T BUY APEX!! Sadly, I cannot edit my star rating to zero.


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My Previous Review:

Good little system, October 8, 2003

Nope, it's not a 16:9 display. The picture is deceptive, it looks widescreen in the illustration. That aside, this isn't a bad little machine at all. I bought it to run movies at work as background noise. I've had it for a week and it's getting heavy use every day. The image quality is good as long as you are not trying to view from an extreme angle. Since it's a personal system, that isn't much of an issue. The sound with headphones is good and I was surprised at how clear the speakers were the one time I didn't use headphones. It did freeze up on me a couple of times, but I restarted the disk without trouble. I don't find that it's getting excessively hot. There is quite a bit in the package, which is nice: earbud headphones, car power adapter, ac pwer adapter, battery, tv connector cables, remote. Some other systems make you buy some of those separately. I'd velcro the remote to the unit so it doesn't get lost, since it's necessary in order to access menu items...don't want to lose it. Added bonus: it plays BOTH NTSC and PAL formats. Wish I'd had this when the Buffy DVDs had only been released in the UK. All in all, what you get for the price is pretty good. I recommend this as a good, no-frills, economical portable dvd player.

I received the Apex PD-10 as a gift, while on vacation in California, so I had an opportunity to use it on the trip home. It has a great picture and great sound as long as your using the earphones. I was disappointed the battery did not last longer as I had to wait until I got home to see the end of the movie. The book says it will last for 3 hours so has long as its a short movie your okay. It does come with a adapter for the car, so that will be great for a road trip.

This player does not have a 16x9 display like that is shown in the picture. it is indeed a 4x3 display. Only negative about the player. Comes with everything you need to take on the road and enjoy your movies. Really worth the money!

we bought this at circuit city to keep my 2 year old daughter occupied on the trip from chicago to minneapolis. we rented 5 dvd's at blockbuster for the trip. there were good and bad points to this player. BAD: 1) player froze up sometimes, and this was on interstate freeway, not exactly that bumpy. seemed like the generic or copied disks froze up more than 'factory' disks. 2) the audio is useless as you can just barely hear it. i will have to research hooking up to car stereo if we keep it. GOOD: 1) hooked up to the home tv easily and played fine. you get what you pay for, but in a mobile i need the thing not to freeze so much.