Philips AJ3940 CD Dual Alarm Clock Radio

by Philips

Product Details

Product Manual [1.12mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004SCKF
• Item model number: AJ3940
• Batteries: 3 AA batteries required.
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #202,484 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 18, 2000

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Tired of being jolted out of bed early on Saturday because you forgot to turn off your alarm clock? The Philips AJ3940 CD dual-alarm clock radio comes with a WeekendSleeper function that automatically turns off the alarm on weekends.

Wake to CD, AM/FM radio, or beeper, and never worry about the alarm resetting thanks to the included power-failure backup.

Other features include a three-step brightness control for the LED, forward/reverse and repeat for CDs, plus a feature that lets you program which CD track you'd like to wake up to. Sound quality is complemented by Dynamic Bass Boost.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

119 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!, September 15, 2000

By 

Jennifer Rarden (Kansas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philips AJ3940 CD Dual Alarm Clock Radio (Electronics)

I have had this for about 2 weeks and love it! The ability to choose so many different ways to wake up is great! Also, a great feature is that the light over the numbers can be changed from very dim to quite bright.

The sound quality on this is very good, although out in the middle of nowhere like I am, it is hard to pick up any AM stations very well, but it isn't the radio! :)

The buttons are a little hard to push and awkward to get to when you are lying down almost asleep. It also took a little getting used to figuring out how to turn on the alarm, but after a few tries, it got much easier.

All in all, this is a great compact cd/radio/alarm clock for the price! The only thing I would change would be to add a tape player, but I guess you can't have it all!

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great (but not perfect) clock, March 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Philips AJ3940 CD Dual Alarm Clock Radio (Electronics)

I got this clock over a week ago, and I really like it! I'm just thrilled with all its features (3 different ways to wake up, 2 alarm sets with the ability to assign days of the week, great sounding CD player and radio- all in one small package) that I can overlook the few complaints I may have about it's design. Since most people look at these reviews to hear about the bad points, I'll elaborate on my complaints, however small and few.

As has been stated in other reviews , the numbers on the clock display are a little small and tend to fade out at extreme angles. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I often have to crane toward the clock to figure what time it is because the lower angle from the bed tends to make the numbers fade a bit.

The buttons are a little hard to push- or more accurately, it's hard to tell if you actually pushed them because they don't give much (no tell-tale click or anything). However, I do NOT find I need two hands to push a button. The system is heavy enough not to slide unless the user is being over-aggressive.

My last complaint is that you DEFINITELY need the manual to set the clock and alarms. It's a little confusing and I found it a waste of time to try to figure it out on my own. Most of the settings need to be made pushing down 2 buttons simutaneously. The up-side to this is that you will never mis-set the alarm while half-asleep. And it turned out that it wasn't so bad because there are so many alarm features (automatic reset, weekend settings) that after the initial set, you many never have to touch the settings again.

Overall, I really like this system and all its features, and I would recommend it. However, if you're looking for a simple alarm clock and don't care about the features, I would probably pass this one by.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars LED. Please. Just use an LED., February 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Philips AJ3940 CD Dual Alarm Clock Radio (Electronics)

Seems like most clock radios over $50 use LCD numeric displays. Somewhere, at some company, there's a person who thinks this is a good idea. We should all team up and shine flashlights in this person's face at 2:00 AM.

Once and for all: LCD's do not work on clock radios. For one thing, the viewing angle is too limited. I actually had to get a lower nightstand, 'cause my old one placed the clock to high, and the LCD faded out of view from pillow-level.

And much worse: unless the LCD is backlit, the contrast is much too low to be viewed. Do you wear glasses/contacts, but not to bed? Then keep looking, because this unit is NOT for you.

Philips solution (and Timex's, and every other LCD-clock maker's...): backlight the LCD. Well, to make it readable, the display has to be made extremely bright. We're talking shadow-puppet-bright, here.

It seems so simple. The user-testing of these clocks is either being skipped or ignored, or does not mimic how these products are actually used. Sure: if you're in a brightly lit room or store, the LCD is quite viewable; perhaps more so than an LED. But these clocks are mostly viewed AT NIGHT, during and around the time when people are trying to sleep.

The Bose Wave Radios at least gets it right with green LED's, but at that price point they should have all of this unit's features. And that's the frustration: this unit has all of the OTHER features of a high-end clock radio. Weekend alarms is probably my favorite...

Plus, the button layout/usability of this unit was laid out with some common sense: hold "Time", then click the buttons to change it. Unlike the Bose, where some random, early morning, fat-fingered fumbling can easilly change the clock's time while hunting for the Snooze bar.

Other good things: the sound quality is pretty good (it's no Bose, but then again it's not as bad as the $300 price difference would imply). The radio has great reception, the CD player has a core collection of features, including the ability to wake you to any track on a CD (this was a nice little surprise...).

So, my solution (embarassed to say...): this unit, with the LCD turned all the way down to minimum brightness, and cheap LED, big-numbered clock next to it.

Is this really such a difficult product to design? I admit: I would've bought the Bose, if it had weekend alarms and a user interface that wasn't moronic. But this is a close second, and the price is right. We'll see how the hardware & plastics hold up over the next few weeks...