Customer Reviews

GE 74894 AM/FM Clock Radio with 0.9" Green LED, Dual wake, auto time set,

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This is a neat little clock. It is "loaded" with lots of nice features not found on many other alarm clocks. Straight out of the box, you only have to set a switch to your time zone and the clock will automatically set the correct time as soon as you plug it in. It can even be set to adjust for daylight savings time automatically every spring and fall.

The design is rather small and attractive. My only gripe is that the rounded clear plastic housing on the front of the clock can exaggerate glare from lights and windows.

The buttons that would be used every day are large and easy to find, even when still half-asleep. The AM/FM radio sounds nice enough for what it is (a clock). You can set 2 different alarm times, there is a "nap" feature which you can set during your day to allow you to take a quick nap and yet have an alarm go off to wake you if you oversleep that is completely separate from the normal alarms. You can also set that 'nap' time from 10 minutes to 2 hours. And the Grad-U-Wake beeping tone of the alarm slowly grows louder, starting off at a level loud enough to wake light-sleepers and growing until it could wake your neighbors. Oh yeah, and there is a weekend mode so that your alarm goes off every morning during the week but disables itself on the weekends. It doesn't get any cooler than that!

GE has always made very good clocks and this one is the cream of the crop. (Circuit City is very good at shipping your item fast!)

I bought this alarm clock, becuase my trusty 20 year old alarm clock finally kicked the bucket. I promptly unpacked the alarm clock, threw away all the packing materials and instructions, and forgot about plugging it in for a week. When I finally plugged it in, the clock set itself. I have no idea how this works, but, work it did. You just have to set the knob for whatever time zone you are in, and apparetnly faries do the rest. You can set two different wake up times, and it is easy to adjust the alarm timer either earlier or later. You can select being awakened by either the radio or a piercing beep. (Can't sleep through that one, no matter how I try) I have no complaints, the controls are intuitive and easy enough for me to figure out in the middle of the night. I would give it five stars, but I am morally opposed to giving an alarm clock too much praise.

It's hard to get excited about an alarm clock that has to wake you to go to work, but the GE 74894 is terrific. The numbers are large enough that I can see them at night without my glasses. The radio works very well. The dual alarm, time set, nap features are great. I love it that I can change the time for the snooze feature. All in all, a terrific buy. VERY highly recommended.

I hate being jolted out of bed in the morning, and this alarm has been great to wake up to... I think many of the other reviews have described the features... the alarm starts low and grows louder... the dual alarm, programmable snooze etc. Once you get used to the way to set it, or turn it off, it's actually intuitive. Great Alarm clock for the price. Best alarm clock I've ever owned. Highly recommend if you don't want to feel like you are being told to panic and abandon ship every time you need to wake up. Much more pleasant than the more common NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP NEEP.

I found this alarm clock online (after shopping for weeks) and fell in love with all its features. The nap alarm works great for mid-day breaks and the gradual wake alarm is very nice to wake up to. The buttons are a little small and when you first are awoken in the morning finding the right one can be tricky, but within no time it becomes routine. The weekend cancel feature is my favorite - why don't they put these on every alarm! Word of caution for college dorm-dwellers: this thing collects dust like no other! Overall, a great product, and it looks great too.

It's hard to get excited about an alarm clock, but if one were to get excited, it would be over the GE74894. This alarm has practically every feature you can want - and then some: Dual Alarm with choice of music or tone for both, Nap feature, Programmable Snooze and Sleep feature, Auto-Set time, Day-Light Savings mode, Day of the Week indicator, and Weekend mode. I think some of the reviewers were confused by the set-up because it is slightly different than most alarm clocks. Take 5 minutes to read the manual and save yourself the aggravation - it is quite easy once you go through it. It is well-built and looks great, too! An additional note - there is another version of this alarm clock that looks very similar to this model, but only has a single alarm (I'm not sure about the other features). I believe some of the reviewers may have purchased this model...

After my 15-year-old alarm clock finally kicked the bucket, I did a lot of research on alarm clocks with more modern features and picked this one. After a few weeks, I am very happy with it.

Dual alarms with gradually increasing alarm volume are great (although I do wish it started even quieter, but it's not jarring by any means). The weekend cancel feature is great, although it applies to both alarms or none. My single favorite feature is the ability to set the snooze duration. Most clocks are set to 9 minutes or whatever...if I snoozed for 9 minutes, I would be late for work. I have it set to 2.

Obviously for the price, its auto time set does not tune in an atomic clock via radio, it is simply preset at the factory. Mine was off by less than 20 seconds. The real feature here is that the two AA backup batteries not only keep time when the power is out, but will also set off the alarm if the power is still out--no more missing work due to power outage. Another simple great feature is the daylight savings time switch, no need to set time twice a year.

LED brightness is fine, not too bright at all, about the same as my last clock.

My only complaints are minor: The rounded front acts like a wide-angle lens for glare if there is a sunny window during the day. And all the labeling and even some of the smaller LEDs like days of the week use the ugly childish comic sans font. bancomicsans.com

I look forward for using the nap feature for a tired afternoon, and more use of the radio; I currently prefer the alarm tone. Overall I am very happy with this alarm clock.

This is an Excellent alarm clock, at a very good price. I bought 2 one for myself and one for my son 14. He was showing me how it works, and he didn't even read the instructions. Very user friendly. The clock has large green numbers. The alarm is not an annoying BUZZ BUZZ that makes you jump out of bed. It starts off low and gradually gets louder. I would highly recommend this alarm clock. Another plus the clock sets it's self to the right time automaticly when you plug it in, but for those of you like myself who like to set the clock ahead a few minute's you can do that also. A switch on the bottom let's you pick your time zone. There is also a switch to set the Daylight savings time. In the summer you leave it off and in the winter you turn it on. The clock will move ahead an hour or back an hour on its own. The clock also shows the day of the week. This is a great buy.

First the good news: The radio pulls in my preferred distant station just fine, so no complaint there. The dual alarms are nice, and the ramp-up "beep-beep" sure beats the "NYEEEEEEEEE" my old alarm had. The weekend alarm feature is wonderful. The relatively large display is nice for my wife to see without her glasses.

Now the neutral: The sound is pretty typical clock radio. But, hey -- it's a $16 radio! The slide-rule tuning pretty much means you set it to one station and leave it there forever.

Now the negatives: First, the display is too bright! For this reason, the radio is being banished from my night stand. I can practically read it with my eyes shut. Second, the buttons are counter-intuitive. On the display, alarm #1 is on the left, and alarm #2 is on the right. But, the buttons are backwards - 2 is on the left, and 1 is on the right. The button to shut off the alarm in the morning is very small, and hard to find when you are just barely not asleep. Only the beeper ramps up in volume (not the radio, which my daughter's Phillips radio does). And, the supposed "Automatic time set" is just a stupid marketing ploy - deliberately deceptive, and shame on you, GE. I was aware of it before purchasing, but I'm disappointed in GE.

Anyway, my impressions of the quality and performance are pretty good, but it falls short in the details.

Sharing a room with a brother who gets up at a different time, this alarm clock is a blessing. Previously, we would share one alarm clock and the person who was the first to get up would have to reset it to the second person's time. Of course, quite often my brother would forget and I'd end up waking late. This is no longer the case.

Like others, I researched for at least a week every dual alarm clock out there. I was looking for something with dual alarms and preferably atomic calibration. Finding that none within my budget exisited, I settled on this one and have been completely satisfied since it's purchase.

I agree with another user that some of the buttons are counter-intuitive yet I don't judge it as harshly as he does. I liken it to getting a new remote control; sure, the buttons are all in different spots then you're used to but after using it a while, you learn to operate it without even looking down. It's the same with the clock. First few nights were a little hard but now I can operate it in the dark pretty quickly.

The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because of the brightness of the display. I wish GE offered a brightness control or at least offered the ability to change the color of the readout to red, which is much easier on the eyes at night. I solved the problem by just propping the case for my glasses in front of it. The case effectively shuts the light away and all I have to do is lift it up to check the time and then place back in front of the clock. This may be a problem though for people who don't keep it at their bedside.

Altogher, I'm very happy with my purchase. The large numbers make it easy to see without my contacts and it is a pretty simple clock to operate once you read the manual. I highly recommend it.