Apex GB55HD09W 55-Inch Projection Widescreen HDTV-Ready TV
Good TV...while it worked...
TV just broke, but thanks to the 4 yr warranty I purchased, COMPUSA is going to be replacing the TV with a comparable model, or giving me a credit to purchase another TV...so...looks like I'll be going flatscreen! Apparently from what COMPUSA says, Apex no longer makes parts for these tv's, so they don't even bother fixing them, they just throw them out. Oh well...I stand to gain so won't complain...    (...) I watched the TV in the store and it was somewhat grainy, but the salesman said that the in-store model should have been adjusted more, and that the TV really did have a good picture. They had an 47' Panasonic and a few other models with smaller pictures for around the same price (+/- $200), and he said to stick with this one. Every sales person I have spoken with has said that the Apex TV's are pretty good, but that apex DVD and VCR's aren't so hot. However, they all said that their TV's have been improving lately, especially since they started doing business in the US. Basically, Apex's sales design is to deliver more quantity, while still emphasizing quality, but doing away with a lot of the options that only audiophiles really need. For instance, this TV does not have the plug that allows you plug your home theatre into a computer (PC) based setup from what I am told. However, it hooked up perfectly fine to my surround sound setup.   Now onto the good stuff. The TV arrived, we let it warm up a bit, and then turned it on. I was going to set the cable up, but decided to go straight to DVD as I just bought a new Toshiba progressive scan player (4900 model). I put in Top Gun, and the picture was horrible! I thought to myself, what did I just buy??? Well it turns out the TV requires some adjusting. First you need to set the convergence, which requires you to be sitting in front of the TV, at the level you would normally view the TV at. Do not do this standing up (more on this later...)! It will throw the convergence off and the picture won't be so great when you're sitting down. So I performed this easy adjustment (you just use the remote buttons, nothing really technical). Then I decided to try out Finding Nemo, the animated Disney movie. Nemo has a lot of color complex scenes, with quick movement and I figured this would be a good test of the TV. Well, Nemo looked horrible still! The orange fish appeared to lack a clear border, almost as if the pixels were not where they should be. Well turns out, I initially did the convergence standing up, and when I sat down and readjusted, it was off by a good bit. So I redid that, and the picture improved considerably. However, the colors were off, and the clarity wasn't there yet. Turns out you need to set the TV to use the DVD player's progressive scan function. So I did that, and the picture got better again. Still, wasn't totally thrilled with the color and clarity, but then I turned on another option on the TV that sets it to theatre mode, and the picture looked incredible! Not a pixel out of place! Fish were swimming around the reef and the colors were awesome. I put in Gladiator and watched some of the fight scenes, and they are crisp, clear, and impressive.   Yesterday we watched the Super Bowl with about 25 people coming over, and I swear the TV got even better over the course of those few hours. Everyone there thought we had the HDTV broadcast of the game on, but we had the standard digital cable. How's that for reviews. My buddy has a Mitsubishi and said this TV looked better than his (to be fair, his is about two years old, the new Mitsubishi's are better than the Apex models, but also about twice as much). However, I am going to get the HDTV cable box, it's only a one time $10 fee from my cable company, and that will improve picture clarity even more. I'm looking forward to it!  All in all, I am extremely pleased with this TV. A few things to keep in mind: If you are checking this out in the stores are not impressed, ask the TV salesperson to tune it up, many times frombeing moved around they don't display the best picture. Also, the stores lighting will wash out the colors. Bring a good DVD to test out the TV's, preferably something with vibrant colors and lots of action to see how the progressive scan works.  Check to see that there is a local Apex certified TV service area around you in case something does go wrong with the TV. You can do this from the apex digital website. In my case, $100 for the 4-year warranty was the way to go. They will come out, pick up the TV, and repair it. When you get it home, make sure to adjust the settings, there is a few presets that you can just set with one click of the remote. Then, you can fine tune it off of the basic presets if you desire. I found the \\"movie\\" preset needed some color added, but looked great with that one adjustment.  The TV does feature a number of screen formats. The standard wide screen is great for movies, but many TV programs are not in widescreen just yet. So, this TV offers a few different options. Once stretches the TV picture to fit the screen, but makes some objects appear out of round. However, there is another stretch function that alleviates this problem, and everything appears in normal size again. There is also the standard 4:3:4 aspect ratio, which will place black bars on the side of the picture and display the screen as you would normally see it on a standard TV.   But you will definitely need a progressive scan dvd player, which all dvd players now on the market are. However, if you have an older model, you'll need to upgrade to even watch a dvd on this tv (or any other large screen dvd player). The one drawback to this tv is that when you see a persons face taking up the entire screen you can see the pixels and it appears \\"digitalized\\" sometimes. Its nothing horrible, and it certainly does not ruin the experience, its just one of those things that the more expensive TV's seem to take care of. I have also been asked about the reflective screen and windowglare. I have the tv in front of the windows, so thats not a problem for me, but this screen isnt quite as reflective as some of the other models. I would say its semi-reflective. I am going to turn the tv around to face the windows and see if its still viewable (more on that next week)  All in all, I am very satisfied with this TV. It has all the necessary options for your typical homeowner, and the picture is very good. For the price, I don't think you could go wrong. My thoughts are that plasma's are going to come down in price, so if I have this for 3 years and turn around and sell it, I will have paid a small price for the satisfaction this TV is going to provide. Looking forward to going home and watching some more movies and I don't normally watch movies a second time!