Customer Reviews

Sony ICF-C180COS Radio AM/FM- Dream Machine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You would not believe how hard it is to find a decent alarm clock. All I wanted was a alarm clock that shut off automatically on the weekend but the Emerson Research smart set was the only 2\5\7 day setting alarm clock I liked. After buying two of those and having issues with both, one the radio would lose the station over time and not wake you up, two, a brand new one having a bad LED and poor radio reception. Emerson needs to check their quality and then maybe they will have a great product. Yes this Sony has a hard to read display because of the viewing angle but if you have a small table next to the bed it works just fine. The radio pulls in every station and sounds good and loud for the size of the device. The alarms are really easy to set all you do is turn the knob to the desired time. Plus all you have to do is hit one button to shut the alarms off for the weekend or have two new sets of alarms. This thing gives you up to four alarms. If it had a better display I would give it 5 stars.

I agree the features are great, but two problems:1 - the sound is actually worse than you would expect from such a small speaker today; I could live with that, but 2 - the clock display is only readable from a very small viewing angle. You see only the amber backlight if the unit is above your line of sight and the same if it's below the very narrow fixed design height which is slightly below level with your eye. I tried all sorts of props and shims to make it readable, but if I moved, the display vanished again. I gave up and returned mine.

I bought this alarm in large part because of the dual alarm feature. I take the bus to work and on weekends/holidays, which I don't always have off, I need to get up earlier. This alarm not only has two alarms that I can turn on and off. Which means I don't have to change my alarm setting!!!! I can also see that it is set, which reduces the going to sleep paranoia on my part. I love it just for this.

But the weekend setting allows me to have two other alarms available for times I have to wake-up and do things on my days off, rarely actually the weekend. This is a really cool alarm system. And I love waking up to music that will wake me up, radio has never worked, so the melody setting is great as well.

This is an exceptionally well designed alarm clock. When the alarm is set, an orange window on the face of the clock lights up. This window has the time the alarm is set, so there is no doubt that the alarm is set and the time that it is set for.

I am very satisfied with this alarm clock. I normally wake up around 4:30 AM for work and the buttons are logically arranged and easy to locate in the dark. Two large buttons (A & B) on the front turn the dual alarms on and off.

One of my favorite features is a display at the bottom that shows you what times your alarms are set to go off. They only light up and display a wake-up time if the alarms are turned on. In other words, if the "A" alarm is turned on but the "B" alarm is not, only the "A" alarm side is lit up.

You can set different alarm times for weekends, without disturbing your weekday settings. But be aware that you have to select one or the other so you can't have alarm "A" set for your weekday time while alarm "B" is set for your weekend time. Weekday alarm displays are orange and weekend alarm displays are green.

You have the option to wake up by radio, buzzer or melody. The buzzer isn't very loud. I appreciate this because I'm a pretty light sleeper and don't like being jolted out of bed. If you have trouble waking up you could choose the melody, which is louder, or the radio, which can be turned up as loud as you want.

The clock is very easy to set up, especially if you live on the east coast. Just take it out of the box and plug it in. The current time is already set at the factory. A small replaceable lithium battery saves the time and alarm settings. If you're in another time zone (other than eastern), there are buttons to change the time but I had no reason to try them. There's also a button to toggle between standard time and daylight savings time. A small icon on the display indicates which one is set. Very easy to use.

There are sleep and nap timers available. Hit the buttons multiple times to select the length you want. Also, when you press the large snooze button, you can press it multiple times to give yourself more snooze time, in 10 minute increments.

Just an fyi, the radio has an analog tuner, not digital. I don't plan to use the radio so I don't really view this as a problem.

The only negative is the LCD display is difficult to read at odd angles. My nightstand is level with my pillow and I had to raise the back of the clock so I could read the time better.

I love the functionality of the clock, it has settings for weekends, easy to set wake up time, easy on/off, also easy to read all the settings, radio is not great to listen to but who buys a clock radio to listen to it ?? it is just to get you out of bed. I have had it three years and it started to make what sounds like an internal sparking noise, so I had to dump it, afraid it may start a fire, not sure what the noise is. Not sure I will buy another.

I've had this alarm clock for a few years and here are my thoughts:

Pros:
-ability to have two weekday preset alarms, and two weekend ones
-simple, compact, and pleasing design
-"no power no problem" is helpful
-it sets the time for you (and it is accurate)

Cons:
-Screen is too bright for me to sleep at night (I turn it away from the bed)
-At some angles it is difficult to see the numbers
-Difficult to read time from across the room (and my bedroom is not large)
-Radio often does not get clear reception (this is a problem I've found with all portable radios, but one can often turn them a certain way and reception clears--not this alarm, same reception any way you place it).
-I SO wish the radio had pre-set buttons, you have to use the tuner.

Overall, I like this clock radio more than any other I've tried, though I'm still on the search for one that has less drawbacks.

This clock radio has the WORST radio reception. It's pointless to have a radio alarm when you wake up to static. It's awful and I wish I never bought it. The light is also too bright (and that's on the low setting). The ONLY thing I like about this clock is that it has two alarms (good if you have a significant other) and it's relatively compact design. Otherwise, I don't like this alarm clock radio at all.

You can set four different alarms, it plays chiptunes in addition to beeping or the radio, and the orange/green lighting is pretty cool. Also, it has the rather dangerous but desirable feature of variable-snooze. You can hit snooze multiple times and it will let you sleep accordingly.

Radio reception is poor but static wakes me up just as well as music, and I use the melody anyway.