Customer Reviews

Timex Dual Alarm Clock Radio With AM/FM and MP-3 For iPod Playthrough Black (No Remote) Control TM80BR

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

 

 

After using this for a month, I'm still very pleased with it. The pros far outweigh the cons here.

First and best, this thing sounds GOOD. There are 5 tone presets to choose from. The ported speaker is able to produce amazing sound quality. 5 stars for this alone.

Clock displays time, and when no music is playing, the date. Automatic DST switch. Backlight has 4 levels one of which is off. Backlight color and display text is low contrast, hard for me to see.

Battery backup keeps all your settings.

It remembers quite a bit: If you hit the power button, whatever you were listening to is restored, be it MP3 or radio. If you hit the sleep button, it applies the volume setting in use the last time it turned itself off. If you hit the play button, it plays, from the beginning, whatever MP3 was playing when last turned off.

Sleep times of 120, 90, 60, 30 and 15 mins. After setting the sleep mode, if you click the sleep button again, it displays the time remaining before cutoff. When its time, the sound is gently faded out.

Random and repeat settings for MP3 play. Folder button so you can browse memory contents. ID tag info scrolls while track is played. Select SD slot or USB port for source. Line in for other stereo input. Recessed well for USB drives, with a cover. SD card sticks up a few millimeters from it's slot.

Full featured remote. Yes, it is handy if the clock is just out of reach on the nightstand.

Wake to: radio, mp3, buzzer. There is no way to select "wake to random mp3", but I get around that by putting a 3 second silent mp3 in the memory, select that as the wakeup track, and set for random play.

12 station memories for the radio, arranged in 3 banks, 2 for FM stations and 1 for AM.

The cons:

FM reception is so so. The stations I can get all sound good, but can't pull in distant ones.

The buttons on the front [sleep, power, alarms, wake to, radio preset bank selecter] are impossible to distinguish by touch. Adding a dot of hot glue to a few of them helped quite a bit.

The volume control feels like nothing is there. It works fine, just feels weird.

Can't read the time unless I put on my glasses.

___________

If I didn't already own one, I'd buy it again!

This was given to me as a birthday gift. I requested it, based upon other reviews.
For the most part, I agree with other reviewers ... radio reception is so-so, buttons hard to distinguish in the dark, etc.
Primarily, I wanted a USB/MP3 player capability.
Unfortunately, my unit has a problem ... it occasionally, randomly freezes up.
When playing MP3s from a USB stick, it will suddenly go silent. Usually, after 30 seconds to 15 minutes, it will start up again where it left off.
But 3 times, it has completely frozen. Last night, I set the "sleep mode" to 90 minutes, and had it playing MP3s from the USB stick. When I woke up this morning, the time said "241" (no colon flashing), and the information display was also frozen with part of the information (at the time) shown. Just to be sure it wasn't just a "pause", I waited until the time I had set for the alarm ... but nothing happened!
When it freezes up, nothing will work ... pressing all buttons, many, many times, does nothing. The volume control does not respond. It can't be turned off or on. Unplugging the power from the unit does NOT fix this ... unless I also remove the back-up battery, and then reset everything from new (time, date, time zone, etc.).
I tried the same USB stick in my car radio, and it played without a problem.
I hope mine is a fluke ... but I don't dare use the MP3 function for "sleep mode" any more, for fear the alarm won't work and I'll lose out on a job.

Only bought this for mp3 playback for a childs "night-time music" from a usb drive. Could not justify buying an ipod for this purpose only. Had used a cd-mp3 player for about 6 months before it stopped reading disks, plus it was much larger for my need. This is the second one for our new baby, the first was bought before circuit city went out of business, and is still doing its job perfectly. I have not used the alarm features ever. The radio reception could be a little better the few times I have used it.

For the price, size, sound quality, and intended purpose you cannot find a better one or another at all for that matter.

This review is for those who don't care about alarms. I've had trouble sleeping for years, and have always needed music to sleep by. When I saw that this could use my flash drive with a USB hub, I bought it and replace my previous Timex cock radio with CD player (where the CD player hasn't worked in a year).

I read the instructions carefully because I think most of my disappointments (and those of other reviewers) come from not understanding how to use the product. I was hoping that this would not only play music from my flash drive, but play randomly. And it does! I have 3100 "songs" on an 8gb Kingston flash drive and I'm set for a couple of weeks since this radio starts music from where you left off.

I mentioned the Kingston drive because other flash drives, especially the HP, won't work. (The HP wouldn't work in my car either). But the Kingston has a flashing light as it plays which can be annoying especially with the lights out. BUT this Timex radio has a cover for the flash drive compartment, and so another problem is solved.

The single speaker is high quality, but I rarely go above 6-7 volume-wise. Still, I tried it at 20, and it fills the room, so if you want a radio for a shop/store/whatever, this may fill the bill.

AM/FM presets are simple and easy to set. The clock is a little more difficult, so relatively easy, but I am going to miss my automatic-setting clock on the older Timex even if was always off by four minutes. AM is good, but surprisingly it also picks up FM from over the hills which is quite a feat.

I really don't care about alarms, but if you've used an radio alarm before, this shouldn't care any problems.

The time is really bright! If this were across the room, I'd be able to see it in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, I could also use it as a night light. I'm talking REALLY bright! It can be dimmed considerably by touching a button three times, and then the display is a comfortable whitish/gray.

Nice little remote which comes in quite handy even if the radio is just 3 feet away from me. Yeah, I'd give it 5 stars... Let's hope it lasts longer than what it's replacing. I may even get one of these for my office although I guess that's what my computer could be used for.

I bought this to replace a Timex T611 that automatically adjusted for DST (from before DST changed a few years ago). Had the government not altered DST, I would probably get another decade or two out of it. However, there were several times where I almost missed the change, and I got tired of setting it four times a year, so I bought the TM80.

The sound quality and remote control more than make up for the lack of a Mon-Fri alarm setting. It sounds great throughout the entire range with no distortion or ear splitting highs. It also looks very modern and compact, and I love the black and silver look. I don't quite care for the gentle fade-in when the alarm goes off, but I get by that by adding 10 seconds of silence to the wake-up track. The radio reception is good, the USB and SD media can hold hours and hours of music, and the off button is located such that I cannot accidentally press it instead of snooze and lay back down. Also, If the feds mess with daylight savings again, I can handle it, as the time adjustment for this model is made manually.

I bought this radio for work after having tried 2 others which were not able to receive the am talk radio stations I like to listen to. The reception is great. You do have to turn the radio depending on the station, but that is typical for am radio. The remote is so handy to be able to turn off the radio if someone comes in to the office who needs to talk to me.

Very bright display, not visible to sleeper who needs glasses, could not make out numbers. Contrast of display poor except on bright setting, which was too bright for sleeping. Sound quality extremely poor, low quality control. Had to return unit. Speaker was so distorted I could not understand news announcers on several stations. Same issue with mp3 files.

Interesting design but poor build quality for my unit.

This is a worthless clock radio. I cannot see the time and the radio comes in staticy. Definetly would not recommend this to any one.

It's a great to wake, in comparison to a cheesy buzz alarm, to your own music, sounds, Jerky Boys skits, etc. Give it a try. You won't be disappointed waking to whatever makes you laugh; not to mention you'll be humming or joking about the sounds you woke to all day. The only thing I don't like about this alarm clock is the menu functions to choose a folder, then sound file. If Timex used a wheel to browse and select, it would be a thousand times easier. But don't let that stop you. It's still a great way to wake to a customized sound library.

This does everything I wanted. I do not want to hook up an MP3 player to my alarm clock, also I don't use a "iPlayer" of any sort. I use the Cowon, and most all of my mp3's are on SD cards, in any case i don't know why anyone would use a clock to listen to mp3 collection. Rather I wanted something I specifically wanted to use when I am going to sleep and waking up, like listening to nature sounds as I go to sleep, or some funny song to get me up in a good mood (like the youtube russian lololol song) Really I just want a way to quickly add my own choices of songs around bed. So it does not have to have perfect sound, but decent sound, and the alarms need to work well, and it MUST have a Snooze button. I have to say it does all of these without a hiccup I have NEVER had it freeze, as one reviewer mentioned.

My only complaints are one, when it's playing a very bright led in a button comes on which is no fun when I am listening to go to sleep, a little cut square of electrical tape fixes...still no devices for the bedroom should have lights that cannot be turned off while in use. Also both alarms have to use same wake up style, so you cannot first start bird sounds or something peaceful, and follow up with a good old fashioned beep alarm. These are really just my small complaints and not very important. One thing is that it does NOT take SDHC, no big issue though I only load songs and sounds I want for sleeping and waking anyway. SD just makes it easier for transfer.
Last thing...it's a Timex I've had better luck with their clocks then any other brand so far...i'm very pleased with my purchase.