A hard shopping lesson taught by APEX
By Matt Burns 
posted Jun 26th 2006 9:47AM
posted Jun 26th 2006 9:47AM
Lets be honest. How many of us have been tempted to buy an entry-level (read: cheap-no-name-but-it-is-a-heck-of-a-deal) consumer electronic? Most have 'cause they might have a great picture or the styling is rather nice. You would think that in these days of class action lawsuits and consumer watchdog groups that manufactures would not be able to get away with selling...crap. Well, this isn't entirely true. Walk into any major electronics store like Best Buy or Circuit City and take a look at their lineup. They will have some nice name brand products and then some no-name entry-level products at the other end of the price range. Ron Donoho bought the APEX at the low-end of the scale and is now paying the repercussion. Most people remember APEX as a rock bottom priced product line-up sold almost exclusively by Walmart and Circuit City from 2002-2005. Ron purchased his 27-inch APEX LCD from Circuit City in February of '05 and well, it broke. Very long story short, he declined the extended service plan from CC but it still had parts covered by APEX and local service centers won't touch the set because of bad relations with APEX. In fact APEX themselves are in heaps of trouble with the Chinese government (CEO was physically tortured for fraud and bad debt - can we send Ken Lay over there?) so they aren't any help at all. So the moral of the story? Sometimes those entry-level products that look like such a good deal might not be that. Sure, there are always exceptions to the rule and even name brand products go bad, but more often then not, they outlast no-name products.
Mr. Ron Donoho has a very lengthy write-up on his experiences with APEX that might be worth a read if you are in the market for a new TV. We are curious to hear your experiences with entry-level product lines like APEX. Tell us everything - good or bad.
Best cheap DVD player I ever bought. It was the middle of the night like 3-4 years ago and we needed a DVD player to watch a movie, got an Apex at Wal-Mart for like 30 bucks. We threw that thing around, would toss it into the bed of the truck as we drove around. dropped it, etc. etc. and it worked like a charm. It was not a good player... but on Standard def TVs if you didn't want to do anything special, you could watch movies pretty well and it was small enough to move around.
I wouldn't buy another one or their products, but in a pinch it worked and it would never die. I've heard from other folks that theirs have lasted less than 9 months though. YMMV.
I bought an APEX dvd player for about 30 bucks as well, near Christmas time one year. It still works great after 5 years or so. Despite it being so cheap, it played anything we threw at it, including home movies burnt onto very very poor media (the old Ritek media) from years ago. I do agree with James in that it is a great player IF "you didn't want to do anything special" with the dvd controls.
I probably wouldnt buy anything else from them, especially after this post. In addition, most named brand companies are making very inexpensive electronics anynow, and with many sales that come around at least once a month, there is really no need to buy no-named brand electronics.
if Apex wants to sell a 100" LCD for under $500 bucks i'll buy it, as long as it will last for at least 3 months
I have a question for people out there. I have been looking at those nice 27'' & 32'' Westinghouse LCD's at Best Buy. I saw the 27'' for only $700 the other day. Is that considered a low-end TV (where I will pay the price one way or another with random problems throughout its life) or would you say it is a safe brand. I have only really been hearing about it for the past year or two, definitely doesn't ring a tune as nicely as Sony or Toshiba etc.
So is that a safe a bet or not?
Best entry level product I ever bought was my Visio P50HDM at Costco... I love it, and the only thing disapointing about it is the fact that the price has dropped $700 at Costco since I made my purchase. Vizio is top notch.
Usually I like name brands, however I bought a Kolin 32" LCD, final price $720. Pic and performance is pretty good, no probs whatsoever after 6 months. We'll see how it lasts.
I also have two Apex DVD players for the kids to use, prob 3-4 years old. They beat on 'em and they just play, play, play. Guess I've been lucky.
If your going to take a chance on consumer electronics especially in the case of a new HDTV, I got a couple of words for you...."Costco Retrun Policy"
Just don't abuse it.
Sometimes, it just doesn't matter what brand, but rather when in the product's lifecycle you purchase. I purchased a Philips 42" plasma a little of four years ago when they were just coming into Best Buy, and it's been warrantied twice, spendinig about three months in the shop each time. Both times the screen was replaced, and the second time the power circuit was replaced. About three months ago, the power circuit went out again, and this time Philips refuses to do anything about it. Given that I purchased it when they first came out (for about $7,400), I certainly paid the price for being an early adopter.
The moral of the story is this, if you absolutely have to have the latest and greatest, be prepared to work through the kinks and possibly pay for it. As for me, I'm waiting a few more months until some of the 2nd gen HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players come out, and will give all the new 1080p plasmas about a year to work out any bugs.
(NOTE: Yes, I was offered the BB service plan, but at that time it was an add'l $2,400, so I declined.)