Customer Reviews

RCA RP5640 CD Clock Radio with Auto Time Set

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I've had this clock radio up for one night so far, and I'm fairly happy with it. It's got the basic features of a clock radio/alarm right, in that it has a battery backup, tells the time, and does both the regular radio and weather radio things, as well as more which I haven't explored yet, I think. It has a number of other features, such as the ability to play and wake up to CD, which I was looking for. I was able to burn a mini-CD and use that in this unit.

The unit includes autodimming based on (lack of) ambient light, and you can select any of four colors for the display: green, blue, white, amber. The autodimming feature gets very dim indeed. I'm going to have to move the unit closer than its predecessor, which was around 6ft away. That's not a problem. People who want a dimmed display to be dim may be quite happy with this unit.

One big deal from my point of view is similar to those included in reviews here of older models of this clock: the design of the controls is not optimized for ease of use, but for looks. I had to SEARCH for the snooze button! The CD load button is where the snooze button should be, which may trigger an awful lot of accidental unloads. I figure I'm not alone in not being completely awake when an ALARM CLOCK is going off, which should have been taken into account in the design.

Other than the interface design, which I do in fact consider of critical importance, I quite like the feature set here. It will randomly pick a track, or let you pick one ahead of time for each alarm. It can be configured to repeat either the whole disk or one track or to repeatedly pick a random track, as far as I could tell, having not read the instructions in detail, going from the options which popped up on the display as I operated one of the buttons labeled with 6-sided dice.

About the instructions, I figure I should mention that accuracy was apparently not a high priority. In the bit about setting the clock, it says to press a particular button repeatedly until the CLOCK SET indicator came on. Oh yes, I'm overwhelmed with the precision of these instructions.

The unit came with the battery backup installed, so I didn't actually have to set the time. It includes a slide switch on the bottom of the unit for selecting one of four time zones, completely specific to the Americas, as well as a button for selecting Daylight Savings time.

Anyway, I've had the unit for one night, and it worked. The snooze button in particular got a workout, as did both alarms, to make sure they worked well. Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

We'll see what happens over time. This unit replaced one by another company which worked fairly well for 26 years, so that's what this one is up against.

UPDATE: I've now had this clock radio a few more days, and I've learned more. It turns out that it DOES indeed have a nice big SNOOZE button, but it's perhaps harder to see than it might be because the "SNOOZE" characters are impressed in the long button under the CD door.

When an alarm goes off, the display turns red, which I consider a nice touch.

Given all the above, I'd like to revise my rating to four stars.

UPDATE: I've now had this clock for 2 1/2 years. This morning, the alarm didn't go off at all. I have it set to use the CD for a music source. When I woke up, it displayed "ERROR". I haven't been able to open the CD door yet. If this clock has become that kind of unreliable, it's headed for the electronics recycling at the local dump. I'll find a unit from a different manufacturer which takes a memory chip containing MP3 files instead. I said it had to compete with a clock that lasted 26 years, and it lasted more like 30 months.

It's a shame 'cause I like the display and I'm, well, used to the shortcomings I listed earlier. And I'm used to the way the "snooze" time changes all by itself to smaller numbers (I thought I just hit it! It *can't* be 10 minutes yet! ...and it's not, it's 2 minutes). And I'm used to how non-random the "random track" selector is. Whoever designed "random" for this thing seemed to like the middle track of whatever CD you put in it. Or maybe it just likes track 10 always. I'm unclear on that.

I got this for a Christmas present. Right away, the CD portion was broken--it played CDs too fast, so what came out was chipmunk speed. At the time, I didn't worry about it because I had an mp3 player. I enjoyed the clock for a couple of months, then the CD door broke--not because I was playing CDs, but because when I woke, I confused the CD open/close button (on top of the clock) with the snooze button (at the bottom of the clock). Very poor button placement.

A week after the CD door broke, I came in and noticed that the clock screen was blank--the light was on, but no numbers were showing. I couldn't turn on the radio, play the CD. Nothing.

I got the gift in January. It completely broke in April.

I am never getting it again.

in reading others peoples review I felt I must chime in and tell you that after about a year of use... we are talking at night just pressing play for the cd player in my daughter's room, very light use. the CD player stopped playing and the cd door will not open. I think I will have to break the thing to get my miles davis cd back. I am disappointed. It is ugly and not user friendly either. wish I could return it and get my money back. Now I am on amazon looking for a replacement. don't buy it.

I have had this radio for over a month. This is a great clock radio with lots of useful features. Good radio reception if you stretch out the power cord like the suggest in the owners manual. The small CD player control buttons on the front are a bit cumbersome to use because you need to hold on to the radio to keep it from moving away from you as you press them. The sound on the weather band is very weak and has to be turned up to be heard. Then if you forget to turn it back down the CD or FM radio sound is too loud. I would definitely recommend to a friend.

While the radio had excellent reception and sound, much to my dismay it did not have an earphone jack; it doesn't play MP3 CDs; changing stations was awkward at best; and the instructions were poorly written (by someone with little understanding of the English language, I suspect).

I bought one of these and after I received it determined that it would NOT play MP3s. There is a jack for an MP3 player as input, but no way to play MP3s as received.

Now for you yung-uns...MP3 before the flash drive players ment a CD with MP3 files on it. This is a convenient way still to load music lists and play them in the home. Most DVD players will also play MP3 disks. So I wanted a clock radio to play them for those nights when I awake at 3 in the morning to worry about the world. An extended source of my favorite music would be the MP3 CD disk. It'll hold about 13 hours of music if you cram it full.

So I regard this a misleading advertising by RCA Thomson and want ya'-all to know about it.

Have been using this product for a few months.

The Pros:
- Very well designed. The size isn't big and it's very good looking sitting on my bedside table (I got compliments from people visiting my house).
- Can wake up to any track in a CD. A very important feature. Why would anyone want to always listen to the same track?
- Set up is quick and easy. Just follow the three easy start up steps and you are all set.
- Large numbers on the screen. Even with my poor eye sight I can still see it without my glasses.
- Has all the alarm clock features you'd expect from this price range.

Cons:
- Screen is a bit bright at night even after dimming it down. I need to turn it away from my face to sleep. A big minus.
- It's VERY, VERY sensitive to static. My hands are static prone. There are a few times when, upon first contact with the clock, the static completely shut down the clock or screwed up the screen. I had to unplug it from power and plug it back again. Good news is that it did't change the clock settings. So I can live with that so far.

Overall, it's a good value. If you can live with these two cons then get it.

I received this alarm clock for my Brithday last April. I ahev really enjoyed it. I have had none of the problems I have seen listed in other reviews here.

I do agree that the button layout takes some getting used to. The snooze button is not where one would anticipate it being, and this led to me searching for it the first few mornings I was awakened. I did acidentally open the cd disc holder a few times, since that button is where you intuitively think the snooze button should be. However, after the first few nights this has not been a problem.

It is nice to be able to choose which color you want the display to be. I typically keep it set to green. When the alarm goes off in the morning the display changes to red and flashes with the alarm. It will stay red after you hit snooze. This has been helpful to me (I am a heavy sleeper and sometimes forget that I have been hitting snooze for an hour) since I know I am in the process of oversleeping if I glance at the clock in morning and it is red. the display turns back to your default color when you turn the alarm off or after the alarm has been going off or being "snoozed" for two hours.

The sleep function is nice, and it is easy to set the amount of time the radio/cd will play before going to sleep. The only thing I would have liked to see here would be for the music to fade out when sleep timer is out. As it is it just shuts off, which is standard for clock radios, but a fade would be nice.

Overall I am very pleased with this clock, and I normally don't like anything from RCA.

I purchased this item on amazon and recieved it shortly thereafter. The reason i purchased it because under the advertisement it specifies the unit can play MP3 type CDs. After upteen atempts to record MP3 CDs and testing the unit upteen times.I gave up and realized it ONLY PLAYS REG AUDIO CDS. ?? What ?? Yes You read it. After all that inserting MP3CDs the unit door also decided to stop i had to unplug and replug it a few times before the unit door unjammed.
As a tech wiz i say your better off buying a clock radio CD Player with MP3 ( Player connection ) at 1/3 the price with dual alarm and you get what you pay for then being falsely conned into purchasing something electronic that doesnt do specifically what you purchased it to do .i wonder if amazon is aware?

This clock radio has been a huge disappointment. I have appreciated the battery backup and the large display,but the CD player stopped working after only a few months. It's also very frustrating that the button to open the CD player is in the place that most people would expect to find the snooze button. All in all, a very disappointing purchase.