Clock-Radio Reviews

I started having problems with this clock about six months after I bought it. The buttons stick and you have to keep pressing them to unstick them. I will be listening to the radio on it and it will just shut off. The volume dial is very touchy..You have to turn it just right or it will start blaring. I am very disappointed with this alarm clock. I have a different alarm that is almost ten years old and have never had one problem with it. I do NOT recommend this item to anyone!

I bought this trusting the GE brand. My sturdy GE clock radio of ten years took a few too many bangs and drops, and wore out. It lived a good, useful life. I thought I could trust GE for quality with my next clock purchase.

This is the worst clock I have ever owned.

The numbers are big. I like that. The dials are big. I like that too. The loss in quality comes with the functioning of the clock, not the appearance.

When tuning a station, even a major megawatt big city AM station, the most careful attention must be paid when rotating the dial. It is far too sensitive, allowing no room for accuracy. Increasing and decreasing the volume is the same way. Fine tuning is impossible, and so I suffer with the station sounding fuzzy and too loud.

The electric cord is unusually thick and inflexible. It has an industrial-strength look to it, making it inappropriate radio for any visible place in my home.

The alarm has a feature that the makers brag about which frustrates me. It gets louder beep by beep, becoming annoying if you happen to get up early and jump in the shower minutes before the alarm goes off.

It feels silly to go on about what a poor product this is, given that it is an economical item. Be warned. Whatever the price is, it is no bargain.

Anthony Trendl

I had this clock for only 2 months but now my clock has problems creating. On this clock if you switch to wake time, It won't show the wake time! It will just show the normal time! I use this clock for school but the clock does not
Function properly! Do not buy! Its a waste of money! (I Mean it)

This radio wakes you up at a loud sound regardless of how you set it. If you have it set at a low volume level, it'll wake you and the entire neighborhood at your wake-up time. I just bought it but I'm throwing it out.

Besides not being able to control the volume -- if you wear glasses or have "aging" eyes -- it is very difficult to read the caller ID box -- it is too small

Minimum volume for the radio on the phone is too loud. If you set the alarm radio to wake you, it will wake the entire street block. No way to lower volume. Too bad for an otherwise good product.

I got this clock because the alarm sounds are called chimes, cathedral bells, and something else I can't recall, but it turns out they are all very annoying. I really wanted a Zen clock that wakes you up with an actual chime but couldn't afford it. I thought this might be a nice replacement. I've been very disappointed. As others mentioned, the nature sounds are way too loud and can't be adjusted. I haven't used that feature since the first week I bought it. I'm now in the market for a new clock. The alarm sounds are driving me crazy!

I bought this for my child to sleep to the nature sounds. After buying it, I found you can only play the nature sounds in the "sleep" mode and that they will only play for a maximum of 59 minutes, and then it shuts off! Why can't it just also have an "on" and "off" button? Also, there is no volume control for the sounds, and most seem pretty loud, but "ocean" is the softest. Further, the sounds repeat after a very short time, about 3 seconds, so the pattern is very obvious and could get annoying. I'd say to look for a better product with more features.

so far, I love my clock....except one thing. There is no volume control available for the nature sounds. If you don't want to be blasted by the sound of pounding waves, excited birds or a babbling brook, you have to put the clock on the other side of the room and cannot have it close to your head. I would prefer the volumn to be lower and adjustable. Other than that, it has great features for the cost......

I'm writing this review as I browse for a new alarm clock to replace this one. Being late today was the last straw.
I've owned this clock for about 6 months now and I have been late to work more in the last 6 mos than any
other time in my life. Correlation?

The biggest problem is that fact that the snooze and alarm reset buttons are almost identical in size and shape.
One is on the left side and the other on the right. Try to figure that out when you're mostly asleep.
The nature sounds are useless to me. If it doesn't sound like a freight train going through my room, I'm probably going to sleep through it.
Perhaps that should have spent less time on the nature sounds and more on the interface design. If I could give it 0 stars I would.

I'm not sure about others, but the volume control is either way too loud, or way too soft. What's up with that? That's okay if you're waking up, but what if you just want to listen to the radio? And the Nature Sounds (Brook, Ocean, or Birds) only have one volume setting!!

The 'minute set' feature works by only pressing the button for each minute change - there's no 5-minutes at a time, or whatever to speed up the time setting. The Alarm Reset button is quite stiff as well. You've gotta really press it to get it activated (or deactivate the alarm).

The only plus this thing has is it's 9-volt battery compartment (ie. there IS one).

Ack!!!

I've been using this alarm clock for about 1 year and have yet to be late to work, but that may be because I'm a light sleeper and often wake up a few minutes before the alarm even goes off! As another reviewer stated, if you are a heavy sleeper the nature sounds won't be loud enough to wake you up. For me, it works great - there are 3 sounds to choose from: rainforest birds, ocean waves, and babbling brook. The bird sounds are the best - I haven't even used the others. My only complaint about this product is the angle of the clock face. It angles up, which would be fine if your bedside table was lower than your bed, but mine isn't. I've had to put little felt tabs on the back surface to raise the rear of the clock up so I can read it while lying in bed. Other than that, this is a great little clock/alarm for the money!

I've had this clock/radio for about 2 years now. I had never had any trouble with it. It's taken much abuse because of numerous falls on the floor from my high table. I got it in black, not the Forest Green they have here.

The setup is really easy, I never once opened the manual to figure out how to setup the clock and preset the radio stations. Once I had to do it in pitch dark because my college dorm room mate was sleeping and I didn't want to turn on the lights. It doesn't take a 'rocket scientist' to figure out how to use the thing. It just takes common sense from using other electronic devices.

The backlid screen is very convenient, unlike those other clocks with LCD lights, you can still see the time when the sunlight or any other bright light shines onto the display. Although the backlid screen does get annoying when it can brighten the whole entire room at 3 in the morning.

One serious drawback behind this device is that a lot of interference from other electronic devices can seriously degrade reception of radio frequencies. This makes the radio an hassle to use whenever I turned on my older computer and my older electronic devices, whenever I have newer ones around it turned on, it worked just fine. So I'm guessing that the older electronics don't comply with the newer FCC regualations towards radio interference. So if you have older electronics around and plan on putting a clock/radio nearby it, this isn't the product you should get.

If you don't like the color get a different color, mine is black. I'm only 13 years old and I never once had to look at the directions, for the most part it's self-explanatory. My stereo can't even pick up radio stations but my Dream Machine picks them up clear as a bell.

Although the FM does not come in that well, I love this radio because it gets the best AM reception I have ever had. It is easy to use and you can find all the right buttons in the dark.

There are three things wrong with this item. First is the brightness of the display that other reviewers have noted. The other is that it is not at all easy to set. It involves a complex series of holding buttons down, etc. Very counter-intuitive, I thought.

The biggest problem, however, is that the alarm on mine will not stay on. To turn on the alarm, the instructions say to hold the alarm button, and the LCD read-out will stay the same. Well I did that, but after five minutes, the alarm was no longer showing on the LCD. The sound, etc., is good, and maybe I bought a lemon, but still it's no good if it won't do the one thing I need it to do.

This is a good CD clock radio from Panasonic. Just good. As I am a pessimist, we'll start with the bad. The comment that another reviewer made about the unit being bright was very true. Even with the dimmer on, the display lights up the whole room. This is not a product for light sensitive people such as myself. I found it necessary to put a piece of black construction paper over the display. Of course, then you wont be able to read the time, but your light problem is taken care of. I know this all sounds trivial, but it spoils a rather good product. Also, when the alarm is on, a red light lights up on the top of the clock. Also annoying. Another negative is that this does not have a gradual wake up feature. If you want your songs to fade in and wake you up without jolting you out of bed in the morning, you might want to consider another radio. I made a special CD where I edited wake up songs with a WAV editor to fade in. But not everyone is as clever as me :) Also, some websites say that this model has a headphones jack, but it does not. Now some positives; the player does what it's supposed to do. You can wake up to whatever track on a CD you want and the sound quality is very good, especially when you take into account that you are listening to a clock radio. I wanted to wake up to my favorite music in the morning, and I can do that now, so I am pleased with this product. I just wish some of the little annoyances were taken care of.

Purchased this Panasonic recently to replace a old GE. I am a fan of Panasonic so I thought I would give their clock radio a try. As far as clock radios go the digital tuner and stereo sound was impressive for the price. The built in eq was a nice option that doesn't quite help. The sound is full with decent range though the low end is lacking. Buttons are small and you need to be above the radio to see what's going on. The unit is tall and takes up a larger footprint than most in its price range. Most of this I can live with but the dimmer was unbearable. Even at low (2 Settings) you can make shadow puppets on the walls. If you can live with the dimmer then I would recommend this one for the price, options, and sound. Most every clock radio I looked at had several flaws. It comes down to finding out which ones you can live with. I ended up returning it and purchasing a cheaper Sony with poor audio but a good dimmer. You would think after generations of radios there would be reasonably priced one with a decent dimmer, sufficient memory backup time, quality stereo audio, with a user friendly layout. One day maybe.

Have had this clock for a total of three months. Has slowly
degraded over that period - first lost some of the LCD, then
the backlight, now the whole LCD is gone. Even when it was
working, the rooster didn't sound much like a rooster. I would
have gladly paid twice this for something that was good.

I like the styling, and the ease of setting the two alarms.

I dislike:

Poorly functioning radio tuner, with the dial numbers having little relation to the actual station numbers. Anyway, radio reception is intermittent, from fair to very poor.

LCD display backlight does not function in battery mode; how are you supposed to read the clock, if you can't see the numbers? Or, is this clock for folks who sleep days? Hmmm.

Only 5 minutes snoozing per hit on the snooze button, to a max of 25 minutes. I'm a slow starter, I need longer snooze intervals, and more total snooze time.

However, the little female voice in ze French accent which tells you "alarm on" is kinda handy for the technically challenged person.

I gave it to my 8-year-old niece, who uses it to tease her dog with the rooster alarm. NB: I think the dog hates it as much as I do.

Here's why it's lousy:
1) It has a 5 minute snooze button (useless)

2) The alarm turns itself off after 25 min of snoozing. This will result in many days of oversleeping and being late to work/school.

3) The "rooster" wakeup sounds like a cat throwing up.

4) Amazon's return policy sucks so you'll be stuck with it.

ENJOY!

What does a clock do - keep accurate time - right?
This one has been slowing down with time (no pun here) - Since I bought it it is already 10 minutes behind the "real" time and there is no way to adjust the time. It comes pre-set with the time for the time zone.
Maybe one day it will be a whole hour behind and then I can get the accurate time by changing my time zone!
Great features, but useless as a clock.

Although it is very full featured, this alarm can be very difficult to use. Some of the buttons are inside a panel, while others are on top. The placement of these buttons makes no sense in terms of use. It's also very easy to accidently turn off the alarm when you're still half asleep.

Special note to users in Arizona, Indiana, and any where else that does not observe Daylight Savings Time: There is NO way to turn off the DST auto-set feature, so twice a year your clock will automatically set itself to the WRONG time!

Good :
1. Adjusts time automatically after a power loss
2. Dual alarms
Bad:
1. The nature sound feature is not any good - the quality is poor
2. Makes a loud beep after the alarm is set - really annoying late at night while adjusting the wake-up time
3. Display is too bright at night even after dimming it

I've had this clock for two years, and I am now searching for a new alarm clock. Many of the listed features are in theory very helpful, but their application in this product is unsatisfactory. Frankly I am surprised that Timex continues to market this product.

Positive features: I love the dual analog/digital time readouts. I also like that the clock functions off either batteries or the included A/C adapter, making it unnecessary to reset the clock each time the power goes out or the clock is moved.

Nature Sounds: I thought this feature would be helpful to lull me to sleep, but it is not. The recorded nature sounds are approximately 6-7 seconds long and loop continuously when playing. The "forest" sound has the hooting of an owl in the background, and the "brook" has the chirping of a bird. The repetition of these sounds is not at all relaxing to me, rather it keeps me awake! The "ocean" sound is more tolerable, but with all of the nature sounds, every once in a while I hear a static or electric buzz or click, which is disruptive enough to wake me up.

Radio Tuner: Some stations will not tune in clearly, no matter how careful I am with the dial. The dial is very sensitive, making it hard to make fine adjustments. Further, the volume dial is awkwardly placed behind the tuner on the side of the clock. I often bump the tuner while adjusting the volume.

Volume Adjustment: The volume control was fine at first, but for the past few months the volume dial responds inadequately. I turn the dial all the way up to get normal volume, then a few minutes later the volume is blasting and I have to turn it down again. A few times I have slept through the radio alarm because of this variation.

Alarm Buttons: The buttons worked fine at first, but have become very hard to press. I often push the alarm button 3 or 4 times to turn it off in the morning. Changing the alarm/time settings is an arduous task.

Appearance: Don't be fooled by the picture! This clock is covered with a metallic colored plastic, not metal, giving it a cheap appearance.

Because of these serious and varied flaws, I am retiring this clock and purchasing another. I recommend that this product be avoided.

I purchased this clock about 2 years ago, and it has been a real let-down for me. I was actually surprised to see this clock still being produced/and or sold on the market. Where to begin?...The idea of a portable alarm clock-radio with both analog and digital displays, and nature sounds seemed like a great thing. However, I had problems with the clock the first week I had it, and now it barely functions. (Should have sent it back, I know, but I didn't) The amber display is somewhat appealing, but is always on when plugged in. The angle of the face of the clock is always slanted back a bit, making it difficult to see the digital read-out unless your bed sits higher than the clock. The radio is very difficult to tune, and reception is less than desireable. As far as the nature sounds go, you would think the idea is to provide a soothing soundscape of nature's best, but you immediately notice the overlapping of the sound sequences (which last only about 15 seconds and then repeat). One of the sounds is from "the forest", and you can hear a wolf or some animal howl in the distance, but 10 seconds later, you hear it again...and again...and it actually becomes very annoying!!
The time-set/ alarm-set buttons on the clock's top side barely work now (I have to push as hard as I can to get them to work), and the radio/ nature sounds just stop working sometimes (until one day I figured out that if you close the face of the clock and then re-open it, they sometimes work again-as if being reset or something.)
The snooze bar is one of the few, if any, positive aspects of this clock, as it is very big and easily allows you to silence the nature sounds or alarms with ease. There are three alarms, which gradually get louder after starting, and after each time you hit snooze, which is a positive thing about this clock. Timex has been around for a long time, but they really needed to spend more time at the drawing board on this one. It's really not worth the "time" or money.

I had such great expectations for the alarm clock when I purchased it over a year ago. First of all it works fine. It sits nice and compact on my nightstand. However, it has too many little problems to make it worth the hassle.
The alarm clock has too many batteries to keep up with; one for the analog and one for digital clock and the nature sounds can be heard bleeding through when the radio is playing. Its just slight but its annoying to me.
Its not worth the hassle or money.

Compared to other models (especially by Sony) this one is quite the clunker! It's very big and hangs down low. It seems very low tech. Once you get a quick look at it, you can tell that design is not a factor at all. Spenda little more and get something cool and sleek that you'll use for years to come.

The MC-3800 that I got had a weak front end (Receiver)and poor sound quality at lower volume levels. The equipment is designed well and functionality is great but fails to produce the sound quality of receivers that are a fraction of the cost. The CD player works great but there again, the lower volume sound levels sound distorted or deminished.

I don't know what these other reviewers are talking about, I have had great luck with this and all of the Memorex products that I have purchased. This item hangs down and is designed to do so, it is a under cabinet mount radio, they all hang down, some more than others....