Rating: 
Summary: Price/Performance - more features and functionality
Review: I was stunned on how well this DVD Changer works. I bought mine at Circuit City and was prepared to return it if anything went wrong. The reason I purchased this APEX product to begin with was because of some research I did on-line about the best DVD changers. I own a Sony DVD player which has all kinds of problems playing CD-Rs and just forget about DVD-Rs.This APEX AD5131 supports every type of CD-R I've tried: SVCD, VCD, MP3, DVD+R, Kodak Photo CD, etc. The Karaoke feature is kinda cool too. My only complaint is that you have to point the remote control on the exact same level as the front of the DVD player. Besides that I'm very pleased. The price is awesome - almost $100 cheaper than a Sony 3-disc changer that has less features and less Media type support. Overall, I'm very happy about this purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Bang for the Buck!!!
Review: In my opinion, I think this APEX player is the best bang for the buck. It does everything.. DVD, CD, VCD, CD-R, MP3, JPGS, and surprisingly MPGs... thats right just burn a CD full of your favorite MPG clips you've collected online and watch them on your TV set. A pleasant surprise I must say!
APEX is hardly top-line though. Their products are made cheaply sometimes. Upon removing from the box, the front panel of my DVD tray fell off. Apparently not fastened onto the tray, but just "clipped" onto it. Easily fixed though. And the instructions should have more information in it. But aside from these little problems, I must say its hard to beat a player that has all the features crammed into this unit at this price. It also has: ZOOM, SLOW FWD/RV, FAST FWD/RV, SHUFFLE Play, and pretty much all other features always offered with most DVD players these days. But like I said you gotta love being able to view MPGs/JPGs, and listen to MP3s (you can even listen-in as you FFWD your favorite songs to a certain part of the song. something I have never heard on any MP3 player before this one, and believe me I tried a few).
This is the Best bang for your Buck, if you don't care about BIG-NAME products.
Rating: 
Summary: $40 Labor after 90 Days
Review: I bought this player at July 2003, it stops working right before Christmas. When I finally got connected to the APEX customer support (1-866-427-3946 and it's always busy), the lady told me it's a defect on the Laser Pickup and I need to send it in and pay $40 labor to fix it.
Rating:
Summary: Apex AD-5131 ...
Review: We bought one of these in late 2001 or early 2002. For the price, it couldn't be beat. It supported just about everything, and it's 3-disc. Here are the drawbacks
Complex remote - you have to look at it most of the time to use it.
Power button unit is a hard power off only, so if you power it off from the unit, you can't use the remote to power it on.
Will not automatically recurse subdirectories in MP3 play mode.
MP3s are displayed 13 characters max.
The tray jerks rather quickly. Early on, the 3" cd's would skip out of the tray and get jammed/scored on top. After a few months, full-sized CDs and DVDs skip out of the tray. Not always, but enough to be annoying.
If the player is on, the spindle is running. Always. There is no power-save mode, so if you are prone to leaving things on, expect the spindle to wear faster, and the whole unit to stay warm.
Now, at 1-1.5 years, we find that the unit locks up periodically, requiring a power reset to use. It won't play through an entire dvd before crashing.
This unit is no longer listed on apexdigitalinc 's website.
The firmware available for update is ONLY hacked / unofficial firmware.
That being said, there's alot of good support out there for these units...Just be sure to get extended warranty.
Rating:
Summary: Good Results for the Price
Review: I got this unit after buying a Daewoo DVG-5000 and finding it dead on arrival and having no success with Daewoo's pathetic customer service. At first I didn't expect much out of this APEX machine but after getting it home I connected it to my older TV and VCR, powered the unit on, figured out which combo of buttons to punch on my myriad of remote controls and there it was ... a nice DVD movie playing on my TV and great sound coming from my stereo speakers. The unit is able to play my DVDs, audio CDs, and CD-R/RW without a problem and the 3-disc changer is a pleasure to have for us couch potatoes. The remote has too many buttons for my taste but they all work as they're supposed to so I can't complain. Have yet to try the MP3 and jpeg reader but I expect these functions to work as advertised and after my recent electronic experiences, it'll just be icing on the cake. Having this kind of functionality available in such a low-cost unit is terrific!
Rating:
Summary: Burnt Out after a year
Review: Be aware of this procuct. A little over a year and it will not read a disk. Trash.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptionally reliable unit with a few minor exceptions!
Review: I have had this unit for about 2 years and paid a very small price for it (<$... New). It had all the features that I wanted in a DVD player, multi-format and karaoke (consider myself a good singer). It has proven it's worth over and over with howevers:
1. Remote control, though stylish, is quite user unfriendly and you need a magnifying glass to read functions on the remote.
2. You need to reset to karaoke function each time you wish to use that function, again via remote, which is cumbersome.
3. Unit smells, I know this sounds funny, but it has always had an odor emitted from it which smells like electronics frying, however, unit operates flawlessly. I have always expected this unit to start smoldering and ignite, but thankfully, it has not.
4. To upgrade firmware, you need to know which pirate to buy from, support from Apex in this respect is nil...
Great unit, all in all, and functions as expected and it's longivity has been quite welcomed. Do not expect a whole lot of satisfaction from the remote!
Rating:
Summary: Coolest stuff inside!
Review: That's a cheapest and feature-load DVD changer I could ever Imagine.
It plays virtually anything - any media CD/CDR/CDRW/DVD/DVDR any file mp2/mp3/wav/jpeg/mpg, you don't even need to bother putting your mpg video into VCD/SVCD format! It'll play it! Actually you can put everything on one CDR (mpg video, jpg pictures, mp3 music) and play it! You can create directory structure and it will act as a computer to dig up your files from existing CDs. Plus it has microphone input and Caraoke capabilities!
It comes with everything for basic connection, including audio&video cables, even batteries for remote.
Jpeg rendering is really fast even for big files, plus you can make slideshow and it has zoom capabilities too!
Just to say, this is not an ideal DVD player, but for this money it just amazing!
Remote is kinda mess, small buttons and digits is hard to read and sometimes features are not intuitive, but after a wile you can feel comfortable enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Question:When is a multidisk player NOT a multidisk player ?
Review: Answer: When it comes from Apex. Based on generally good experiences I've have had with Apex gear, I bought the unit a year ago, and it has functioned properly, playing disks with multiple formats, but it DOES NOT SWITCH from one disk to another by itself, let alone from one track to another on another disk. This a fundamental requirement of a multidisk system, IMHO. I've been waiting for a firmware upgrade, but none has been forecoming. In short, don't buy this unit.
Rating:
Summary: Features but no quality
Review: APEX players DO sport some of the best FEATURES available; but some of the most inconsistant and questionable quality. The 5131 worked fine with 5" discs for 8 months. The problem with the unit is that unless you hard power it off, the spindle motor runs ALL THE TIME. The part they used doesn't hold up to that. This is a common problem in the forums, and there is no easy way to repair or replace it. The tray has slots for the 3" CDs; however, the tray jumps when it spins. Sometimes 5" CDs will jam or fall back inside, but always with the 3" CDs. I had a collector CD that was destroyed by the carousel (Scratched through the silver of the CD). As is common with most APEX players, this is of questionable quality. Some people have good luck. We didn't with this one or with a 1110W. Both failed in less than a year with only light to medium use, plenty of ventilation and no physical abuse.
| 
