Customer Reviews

Sony ICF-C218 Automatic Time Set Clock Radio (Black)

5 star:		(172)
4 star:		(87)
3 star:		(40)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(33)

 

 

Not the niftiest, nor the most elegant clock radio available but the price and features make it about as good a buy as you'll find.
All the important features - battery backup, automatic time synch, intuitive alarm setting, good (but gentle on the eyes) time visibility.
There's a dual alarm version available for a few bucks more too.

We liked this one enough to buy another for our guest bedroom - guests won't be befuddled by this model...

BTW, radio isn't high fidelity but its not bad, a good Sony quality product.

UPDATE 10/28/09: Two years down the road and the two of these radios we bought are still going strong. One of the things I failed to mention in the original review was that this unit does NOT, repeat, does NOT have a power brick - just a nice old fashioned wall plug on a wire - sweet. I take note of the comment by others about the intensity (or lack thereof) of the clock LED. Myself, and upon further inquiry, my wife find the intensity to be 'just right'. Perhaps there is some variation in the units or maybe its just a matter of your sleeping environment. We're former Sierra Nevada 'country' folks who now live on the edge of a small Ohio town. Between the street light, the neighbor's lights, the wifi router and a couple of those green 'limelite' nightlights we DO have sufficient ambient light at night to move around without stubbing the old toes. BTW, I've dropped both of our units more than once, and accidentally kicked one across our guest suite - no discernable damage. Oh yes, the wife says that they'd show the dust less if they were white.

I've had this for 3 days now, and i'm very happy with it...and i put alot of research in everything i buy. The Radio works perfectly, picks up all the stations clearly, the alarms sound starts out soft and gets progressively louder..so you will get up. The Built in battery is also a plus, that way i'll never lose track of time.

for this price this is a great product..and oh yes huge green lights for the display and many more features...wake up to the radio or the buzzer...

enjoy....

Unfortunately, I am not able to rate the Sony ICF-C218 as highly as my colleagues. Not that this clock radio doesn't have numerous good features. The radio got good reception and the sound was of better than average quality. The controls, as others have pointed out, are intuitive and easy to use even without ever resorting to the instructions. The alarm, as is common, can wake you up either with the radio or with a buzzer. The only missing feature that would have been nice would be a dual alarm, though for the price this lack cannot be complained of.

The problem with the unit, and it is a serious one, is the brightness of the display. Of the other two reviewers who've rated the ICF-C218 at three stars, curiously one complains that the display is too dim and the other that it is too bright. My experience agrees with the later. I didn't notice until I tried sleeping beside this unit, but once your eyes are accustomed to the darkness the nicely-sized display is simply far too bright. It casts shadows on my ceiling and was a distraction when trying to fall asleep; I was forced to angle it away from myself or face the opposite direction. This is simply inexcusably poor design in an alarm clock and is a deal breaker for me; I'm going to be returning my unit.

A more minor complaint would be the AM/PM indicator. Most clocks have a single light that is lit when it is post meridiem (or ante meridiem, depending on the model), but this one has two lights, one about 7 mm above the other, which indicate morning or afternoon. That's fine when the room is light and you can read the AM or PM text next to the two lights, but at night you'll simply have to remember which light is above the other one and how far each is from the top of the display. Not a big deal for most, but another small design flaw.

This isn't a bad clock for the price (Wal-Mart carries it for even less, $9.96) but the brightness issue makes it unusable for me. The addition of a dimmer switch, fixing the AM/PM indicator, and adding a second alarm setting would make this clock easily a five star item, even at a slightly higher price.

I was so happy with this purchse, it really has a lot for such a small price. As soon as I pluged it in within seconds it had not only set the time but the date too. It small enough to fit on the night stand, easy to set for the alarm,and it has great reception on the radio. I live in an area where there are so many trees you have to go outside to get cell service. I have several Sony radios and cd players in the house and they are the only brand I have not had a problem in getting great reception on FM and AM, and they have such incredible sound......

I hate to set the clocks. We have quite a few power outages and boy am I glad to have found this one. Up and running like a charm and I DO NOT have to re-set.....It's WONDERFUL!

the price is only 11! Reception great, the LED is amiable in the night (not like the glaring LCD). Speaker is fine. the buttons are very intuitively designed.

This is just about as basic as you can get. A great clock at a great price. I've had many different clocks in my life, but here's why this clock was above the rest.
1. Easy ON/OFF buttons. If you want to quickly check the volume of the radio before setting the alarm, it is very easy
2. Fantastic alarm setting "toggle switch". So many clocks make it long and tedious to set the alarm. You just toggle the lever left or right, and the alarm is set in seconds. VERY helpful.
3. Great reception - The FM radio uses the power cord as an antennae.
4. Internal battery - Power outages won't mess you up in the morning.

There are other good reasons to list, but these were the best things I've seen. One of the best $10 I've spent.

I plugged it in and it knew the time. It has an installed lithium battery so a power drop won't cause it to flash 12:00 at you. You will have to adjust a single setting if you are not on East Coast time. Setting the alarm is as easy as toggling left or right to increase or decrease the time. It is very quick and zooms through until you let off. It is very intuitively designed and fast to change the alarm time.

I purchased this for eleven bucks delivered through Amazon Prime. This is an incredible bargain for a very well thought out alarm clock. If you want practical, this is it. If you are looking for a dazzling home audio experience at 6:00 in the morning, you need to keep looking.

I looked at the Sony ICF-C218 clock radio primarily as an alarm clock. In that function it succeeds quite well, except for one deal-breaking limitation that caused me to switch over to its updated sibling the ICF-C318. The limitation is the following: when the AC power is off, the alarm does not ring, even though it has battery backup that preserves the correct time for when the power comes back on. In an alarm clock, this limitation is a serious flaw for a simple device that should work at a high rate of reliability. If the power does come back on after the time the alarm should have rung, it rings immediately. Maybe the power will come back on in time for the alarm to wake you before your boss calls to ask why you haven't come in to work! Nonetheless, this radio has many other good features to recommend it.

The buttons to operate the clock, radio, and alarm are (with one minor exception) intuitive to use and of convenient size. Most people could figure out how to set, arm and disarm the alarm without needing to consult a user manual; the same cannot be said for many other electronic alarm clocks that are available. The unit looks pretty snappy. The 'buzzer' is really a 'peeper' and instead of getting louder when it is ignored (as some have indicated), it peeps more frequently. The peeping isn't as loud as a tree full of blackbirds. If you need a really loud alarm then you should use the radio alarm rather than the buzzer alarm. The radio has adequate lo-fi sound; it reminds me of the transistor radios of my youth. The battery backup uses a CR-2032 Li wafer battery, supposedly good for about 250 days of clock backup use. I don't know why they didn't use a more common and cheaper battery with longer lifetime like an AA. The alarm is turned on to radio or buzzer mode with a recessed knob. The alarm mode (off, buzzer, radio) is indicated via a tiny hard to see pit on the knob. You would think Sony could spare a tiny blob of white paint to make the mode setting more apparent, but I guess you could always paint one on yourself. In any case, there is confirmation that the alarm is on when an indicator LED is illuminated on the front panel of the radio. The non-intuitive button is the Time Zone one. It isn't the button function that is non-intuitive, it is that the zone numbers it displays have no inherent meaning without the user manual. The radio will advance or retard the clock time for DST unless DST is deactivated with the DST button. In places like Arizona where DST is not observed, the ability to deactivate DST is helpful (Emerson clock radios with SmartSet do not have this capability). Because the unit is AC powered, it means the display can be illuminated all the time. In a darkened room the display is easy to read, but in an illuminated room it can be nearly impossible to read at distance.

Overall, this is a well designed clock radio alarm at an attractive price. Its simplicity and intuitive controls make it easy to recommend. The limitation that it won't ring when the power is off is notable but the likelihood of such a failure is small - power failures are infrequent to begin with and power failures coinciding with alarm time would be even less frequent.

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The Sony ICF-C218 FM/AM Clock Radio is a capable and inexpensive clock radio that gets the job done quite nicely. It lacks some functionality such as a dimmable display but its ease of operation, decent sounding radio and overall ease of operation make up for any shortcomings.

It has a battery backup provided by a CR2032 battery and the clock is preset with the correct EST time. Just plug it in and you're good to go. If you live in another time zone, it's a simple matter to adjust the time zone to your zone by using the time zone button on the top of the unit.

I like that the FM antenna is within the power cord. There is no extra wire hanging out of the back of the unit like so many other clock radios seem to have.

Sound quality is quite decent given the small size of the radio. I also felt that the non-digital tuning was good and did not have any problems finding and locking in stations to listen to.

The alarm is nice in that it has a gradual ramping up of urgency. I find alarms quite obnoxious and an alarm that starts off slowly is preferred. That's what this alarm does and as more time elapses, it speeds up the frequency of beeps giving you plenty of time to turn it off before it reaches "full speed."

It's a great value and I like it. The only thing I would wish for is a display that has a setting to adjust the brightness.

By the way, I found this at WalMart for just slightly under $10.