Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Sounds Great, Looks Great, Easy to See
I was looking for an inexpensive alternative to a Bose Wave alarm clock I had on loan. This product is an excellent choice. Here are some of the highlights I especially like:- Display has three brightness levels for easy viewing day or night. - Display is easy to read even though my bed is slightly lower than my nightstand. - Plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs. - Radio reception picks up stations in my area I can't get on other radios. - Sounds great. - Alarm sound is a nice repeating beep rather than an annoyingly loud buzzer. - Gentle Wake feature keeps me from being startled out of bed in the morning. - I can adjust the minimum and maximum volumes of the Gentle Wake feature. - Dual alarms and weekend sleep functions give me plenty of alarm options. - Sleep time for radio or CD gives me 10,20,30,60, and 90 minutes options. - Snooze function gives me 9 minutes. The alarm will not be completely disabled till after an hour of snoozing. All in all a great buy.
Rating:  - Great sound, but hard to see the time from a distance
The radio sounds wonderful. You can turn it all the way up to 32 on the volume scale and it sounds like a small stereo boombox. You can set the alarm so that you can wake up to the sounds of your favorite CD. The clock radio is small and compact so that you can take it with you on vacations. It has a headphone jack on the side (and the radio sounds even better with stereo headphones).So why didn't I give this excellent clock radio 5 stars? Because the gray digital numerals are a little hard to read. With the radio on the dresser right next to where I sleep, it's no problem. And the 3 fluorescent light settings help a little bit, too. But from more than 5 feet away, you have to squint or have the clock radio aimed right at your line of vision to see the time. So when I'm in front of the mirror getting dressed and I glance over to see the time, sometimes I can see it and sometimes I can't. So if you want an easy to read display, I would look for a clock radio that has a clearer numerical display. But if you keep the radio close to the bed, then this shouldn't be a problem. And the radio sounds so good that I had no problem with obeying my wife and moving my Panasonic boombox to the office.
Rating: - great sound, great design, great price but poor radio
Compared to its competitors within the lowest price range for CD clock radios, this good looking unit for me was the one to buy. Unlike many others, it happily plays homemade CD-Rs and produces a clear, loud, pseudo-surround sound. I find setting the multiple alarms extremely easy and have mastered the procedure in the dark. The weekend sleeper feature is useful, as it allows for weekend lie ins without messing up your all-important weekday alarm settings, and the alarm is really good, because it starts off gentle, but gradually gets so loud that even the heaviest sleepers can't ignore it. The repeat alarm (snooze) bar is large and easy to strike whilst you're still trying to emerge from a state of comatization, and the display brightness has three useful settings, depending on how bad your night vision is. On the down side, opening the CD chamber requires both hands. Tuning the radio accurately is tricky, as the tuning wheel is small and crude, and even tuning in to the strongest AM and FM stations is sometimes a problem. I understand a higher priced CD clock DIGITAL radio version is available in the Philips range, so check that out if you like to listen to loads of bedside radio. But if you're not much of a bedside radio listener, you'll get along with this unit just fine.
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