Home > Consumer Reviews > Apex AD-5131 3-Disc DVD Player

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.

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.

I have two of this model and gave another as a gift and I really appreciate the steady quality. Never have a problem, they deliver superior picture and sound and are sturdy. For the price they are an exception bargain. If you count I have had them for over two years, the price per year is ridiculously cheap!!

Wish everything delivered as well as these players do. Right out of the box, don't even have to really read instructions and in couple minutes you are playing DVDs. Have zoom effect that let you take a letter box and push it to three closer levels, has buttons for reverse, memory and forward among others.

Very nice price.

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!

I bought the 5131 last summer. It worked well at first, but then my DVD's would start skipping, even brand-new ones. Now the carousel tray will not always open. Sometimes I have to cycle power on it a few times before it starts functioning properly. The whole unit also often freezes completely so I have to restart the DVD and find out where I left off. It's been a while since I have been able to watch a whole DVD whithout the thing crashing.