I bought this to replace my old alarm clock. It has a sleek design that takes up very little space. It has two alarms and can be set to radio, beeps or songs and has an adjustable snooze setting. The built in radio works well and there's a sleep setting so that if you like to fall asleep to the radio you can have it automatically shut off after a certain amount of time.
It has an adjustable brightness level, but I found its default/highest level to be suitable. At that level it's bright enough to see in the dark, but not bright enough to keep me up. The alarm is easy to wake up to and gradually gets louder on the beep setting. It automatically set itself to the correct time and date as soon as I plugged it in, all I had to do is set the time zone. It has a DST feature that can be turned off or on.
The only feature lacking is the ability to customize the alarm for either weekdays, weekends or both. It's not a big deal, especially with two alarms but it would have been nice. Overall I'm very pleased with this alarm clock. Sony ICF-C414 Clock Radio with Large 1.4 LED Display
Decent alarm clock for the price.
Pros: inexpensive, preset time, dst auto adjust, battery backup for power failure, easy to tune radio stations, easy to read display, brightness of display is adjustable.
Cons: Alarm "A" can be set to chime or radio, Alarm "B" can only be set to chime or an electronic tune. Both alarms cannot be set to the radio. Cannot adjust or view the alarm setpoint unless the alarm is turned on, so when you pass the current time the alarm activates. Radio sound is poor but in line with the price of the alarm clock. The snooze can increased from 10 min to 20 min to 30 min etc, but if you hit the snooze button twice while initially silencing the alarm, you go straight to the 20 min snooze.
Overall: a good alarm clock for the price but I would have paid more for a full featured clock radio had I know its limitations up front.
The item description is very accurate. If you want a dual alarm clock radio similar to those from 10 years ago, that is exactly what you will get and that is why I ordered it. Nothing fancy, just basic but with the Sony dependability. There are a few nice things though - the time is preset, options for the dual alarms sound, adjustable brightness, battery backup, very easy to operate and the AM radio actually works well, unlike other clock radios. This clock radio has no frills but for the price, it is good and dependable.
I have been using this alarm clock for 6 months now and I couldn't be happier. After years of searching for the right alarm clock I finally found it.
Positives:
1) I can see the display! I have moderately poor vision (glasses prescription is -3.75) and if I wake up in the middle of the night I can clearly see the time with this clock at my bedside. The green light plus the large numbers are very clear.
2) The progressive alarm wakes up even my heavy-sleeping husband. The first few beeps are slow and they gradually speed up to grab the attention of the heaviest sleepers.
3) You don't have to set the time! What more can I say? You set the timezone, plug it in, and it sets the time. It even catches daylight savings.
4) If the power goes out the small battery saves your alarm settings so when the power comes back on, the clock resets itself and you still have your alarms ready to go. This has saved me from being late to work more than once after a late night power outage.
5) The display light is adjustable. I've had green/blue alarm clocks before and the display was so bright it practically light up the whole room. The dim setting is fine at night, I can see it but it's not acting like a flood light, and I can still see the display just fine during the day too on the dim setting. Though during daylight hours I do have to get a little closer to the clock to see it.
6) I love the full 10 minute snooze. I don't understand why other clocks have a 7 or 9 minute one.
7) You can turn off the alarm when it's in snooze-mode, you don't have to wait for the alarm to go off again.
Neutrals:
1) The radio isn't great, lots of static and the speakers don't sound perfect. But I wasn't buying a radio, I was buying an alarm clock so that doesn't really matter to me. If you want a radio go buy a radio. *shrug*
2) The alarm isn't terribly loud. This is counter-acted by the progressive alarm beeping.
3) It's a little bit large, but for the big display numbers I assume that's kind of necessary.
Cons:
I really don't have anything bad to say about this clock.
One other note:
Some people have mentioned in their reviews that you cannot set the snooze back to 10 minutes if you go too far. If this happens wait until the snooze display clears off (takes a few seconds) then re-hit the snooze button, this will reset it to 10 minutes.
We live in the country and every other day, out of the blue, we loose power for seconds and sometimes when a storm hits for longer than that . That means having to reset the time in our old Sony Alarm Clock more often that we would like to. Our bedroom is huge and we have this clock on the dresser on the opposite side of our bed so that we both can see the time when we wake up in the middle of the night. The 1.4" LED display came in handy for that matter, also the fact that you can adjust the brightness of the display (yes, I tried the Sony ICFC138 to no avail because the numbers weren't displayed bright enough at night (let alone trying to see the time during the day). The color of the numbers is green just like we wanted (since we don't find the red color soothing at night). This unit suits our needs perfectly but would be even better if some other features could be perfected (like sound quality) or added (like the bi volt feature). - Dual Alarm - Alarm Clock - Battery Backup - Clock Radio'
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