Cheap but sturdy DVD players that can be flashed: GOOD
Expensive name-brand dead-end DVD players: BAD

Sturdy appears to be rather relative.

Most Apex DVD players I've seen are poorly built.

The mainboards are okay and internal construction is simplistic, but the power
supply sections are cheaply designed and built. The disc drives aren't any
better. Many Apex players have used IDE DVD-ROM drives, but the drives that
are used are usually pitiful. They can be swapped with better drives, but
that's more effort than it might normally be worth unless you are intentionally
going after a player than can truly read just about anything.

Furthermore, if you bench test these cheap players to judge their playback
quality, they can turn out some of the worst ratings you will ever see.

The only advantage I can see for Apex is that some of their players can be
modified easily for region-free and Macrovision-free playback. But not all
Apex players are fortunate. While some models only require a few keystrokes on
the remote or a firmware flash from a CD-R, others require a hard swap of the
BIOS chip. Some don't even have mods available, particularly some of the newer
mini-players.

Foruntaely, ANY DVD player will outclass VHS. But a Panasonic will outclass an
Apex in terms of the two most important aspects in a DVD player: Picture and
sound quality. - Reinhart