Indeed, the Apex looks and feels cheesy, but they're now auctioning for $280-350 on eBay -- twice their retail cost. Given that any DVD player you buy today is guaranteed to be obsolete in two years, you might as well buy a cheap one that works for you today. As a nice bonus, you can disable all the bogus copyright protection features.

The Aiwa is interesting because it does like the Apex but in your car dashboard. I still can't get into the Aiwa site (sigh), but there's a short blurb on mp3.com.

In short: it's an in-dash audio CD / MP3 CD-ROM player with a 4x45 "watt" amp, AM/FM tuner, and other whizzies you'd expect from any other $350 Japanese in-dash CD player (including a steering-wheel mounted remote control). mp3.com claims it goes on sale in June.

Dan