Apex AD-1600

CNET editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.0 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  David Katzmaier
• Reviewed on: 09/15/2002

What a difference $40 makes! Compared to the $60 Apex that we recently tested, the $100 AD-1600 is a great value. It can play DVDs and MP3 CDs as well as read JPEGs. On top of all that, the picture looks fine--just pray that the unit you buy works as well as ours did.What a difference $40 makes! Compared to the $60 Apex that we recently tested, the $100 AD-1600 is a great value. It can play DVDs and MP3 CDs as well as read JPEGs. On top of all that, the picture looks fine--just pray that the unit you buy works as well as ours did.

Design
The AD-1600's silver face is marked by a line of logos, a blue LED, and the disc drawer. This Apex is not especially slim, and while its width is less than that of many players, its depth is greater at 12.5 inches, so make sure that you have the room in your home-entertainment center. On the far right of the 1600's front panel, buttons for forward-/reverse-scan and -skip form a circle around an audio button, while controls for play, stop, and open/close stand in a column to the left. You can't access the menu system from the front panel, which may be inconvenient if you misplace the remote.

The smallish remote packs its many buttons too closely together, but the major ones are easy for your thumb to pick out by feel. This remote includes a few buttons that you've probably never heard of, such as the VideoCD-specific PBC Off as well as L/R for messing with the stereo mix. The simple menus look different from those of this model's step-down brother, the AD-1200, and are generally easy to use despite the fact that they lack icons and explanatory text.

Unlike the AD-1200, the 1600 has a solid case and is virtually silent when spinning a disc. Like its brother, this Apex passed the endurance test of 48 straight hours of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back on repeat.

Features
No major features are missing from this inexpensive deck. Unlike most competing players, it can read JPEG and Kodak Photo CD image files--a nice bonus for those who want to display a digital slide show on their TV. We didn't test Photo CDs, but the JPEG discs that we tried worked beautifully. A menu shows a standard Windows file-folder tree, which lets you drill down to individual pictures with ease; the same sort of navigation is more difficult on the 1200. You can rotate and zoom into images, and you can choose from 12 different transitions, such as wipes and blinds.

MP3 capability is similarly top-notch. This Apex played all of our test discs and presented the files in the same intuitive file-tree structure. The 1600 can play tracks in random mode within a folder and shows the first four letters of each folder or filename. The AD-1600 is also compatible with DVD-Rs, DVD+Rs, and DVD+RWs--but not DVD-RWs. Continue reading

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