RCA RP4842 AM/FM Dual Wake Clock Radio

• AM/FM Dual Wake with Green LED display
• Graduwake - Ramp Up Alarm for a smooth transition from sleep to wake
• Nap Function
• Programmable Sleep Function
• Forward / Reverse Time and Alarm Setting

My trusty Sony ICF-C740 that got me through college was assimillated to my wife's side of the bed which worked for a while, but eventually I'd had enough and she's not so good at learning new gadgets so I found myself looking for an alarm clock radio. I'm a big researcher/try-er out-er of things and if there's something about a gadget that bugs me, it tends to grow worse until I take the thing back. So it was with clock radios. I had a few simple criteria: 1) had to be large (>0.9"), semi-bright green numerals (the night-time vision area of your eye is more sensitive to blue--that's why blue signs catch your eye at night--but much worse resolution-wise than the day-time portion which essentially makes your vision worse when reading blue text/numbers at night, so blue displays were a turn off) which were easily visible by day or night, and didn't provide a light distraction for me as I went to bed; 2) preferrably 2 alarm times; 3) had to have radio as the alarm; 4) had to pick up at minimum local NPR station and local classical station as a bonus (best gentle wake-up music & news in the morning); 5) extra bonus points for nicely variable snooze time and a 'nap' feature without messing up the alarms.

I looked at all the current Sonys (what happened to the simple design with nice features and good reception/sound quality?) and a whole slew of clock radios from Target, Walmart, Best Buy and others. Here are the main highlights of the ones that I ended up buying and taking back:

-Extra large display clock (can't remember if it was a Sony, RCA or other brand): In general, I find the extra large displays are rather dim, with the possible exception of the red ones (but I wasn't going for red). Even the variable ones start out dim and just go lower. Don't even get me started on the large blue displays. Try reading them from across the room at night, just big blue fuzzy letters (and before you start knocking my vision, I'm 20/14).

-RCA RP5640: wasn't too keen at first of the LCD display, but you could select green and it was bright enough (though the background brightness made me switch on the auto-dimmer which made it hard to read sometimes depending on the room lighting and my distance from the clock). All-around nice clock with all the features I wanted (including bonus points ones) but overall too many people complaining about broken CD doors (though I probably wouldn't have used that much) and the big kicker-generally poor reception. It could pick up NPR with a lot of background fuzz but not even a hint of the classical station. Also, the "instant weather" channels all picked up some local bad 40s country station...with a lot of background static. The alarm "off" button was pretty small too and in the corner, so not as user friendly as it could have been.

-Boston Receptor: Great sound but...though the audiophile in me wanted to keep it, it too couldn't pick up the classical station (NPR sounded great, though) despite it's advertising on picking up weak FM signals. In the end, I couldn't justify $150 for medium-level reception and entry-level dual alarm features.

As you can see, I was willing to pay a lot for a quality clock radio that did want I wanted it to: wake me up to radio of my choice, have some good features, and be easy to read & use. That's why I was surprised that my final purchase (the RP4842) I got for $7 on clearance at Walgreens. It's an RCA so it (somewhat surprisingly) had the "grad-u-wake" feature with the alert alarm (soft to loud in about 45 sec, though I never use that alarm setting), settable snooze time in 1 minute increments (no other clock radio I found besides the RCAs have that) and a nap button with 10 minute increments up to 2 hours. Contrary to other posts here, I didn't find turning off the alarm hard at all as the "on/off" button is in general fairly easy to feel with my fingers in the lower left corner and has no near neighbors. If you do happen to hit the nap button, all you have to do is hit it again and hold it for it to turn nap mode off. Add to the ease-of-use, feature-rich, and wallet-lite aspects the fact that it could do what neither the expensive RCA or the Boston could do: pick up NPR AND the classical station pretty clearly and it was clearly the winner. The nice hefty speaker also sounds pretty good and can go plenty loud if you like the radio on while you dress in the closet.

I don't know how it compares with the RP5400 (once you find perfection, you stick with it) which I guess seems to be the current revision of this clock, but it looks uglier to me with a worse layout of buttons. Apparently that's the normal current version that Walgreens/Walmart carries and I happened to go to a Walgreens that still had a few of the RP4842s left. So if you find one, pick one up. You won't be sorry. Heck, I might just go back to Walgreens and pick up the other one in the event this one ever beaks or gets fried from a lightning strike.

Buy RCA RP4842 AM/FM Dual Wake Clock Radio Now

As other reviewers have noted, this clock has an excellent list of features. The sound quality on the radio is surprisingly good. Having two separate alarms is handy, the alarm tone is not too obnoxious, and the gradual volume increase works nicely. Unfortunately the designers apparently paid no attention to usability whatsoever.

There should be one simple, clear way to turn an alarm off. It should be something you can do in the dark (if you have to get up while your spouse is still sleeping, you know what I'm talking about). For this clock there are actually two different ways to turn off the alarm (besides Snooze). If the alarm is sounding, you can press the "On/Off" button to turn it off. If it has not yet sounded (either you get up before it goes off, or you have hit the snooze button) you have to press "Cancel" then the specific alarm button. Good luck finding those tiny buttons in the dark! If you accidentally hit "Nap" instead, you've just put the clock into a mode where it ignores your cancel requests. If you forget and press "On/Off" as you would for the sounding alarm, you'll turn on the radio. Congratulations, you've just startled your spouse out of a sound sleep! There a total of 6 LED indicator lights. In the dark, it's hard to tell which indicator is for an alarm (as opposed to AM/PM and Nap function). All in all, very frustrating to operate.

Read Best Reviews of RCA RP4842 AM/FM Dual Wake Clock Radio Here

This clock radio has great features at a very modest price (about $15): two alarms, two-way time and alarm setting (so you don't have to go all the way around if you go slightly past the desired time or alarm setting), a pleasant green display (soothing compared to harsh red or blue), and easy-to-use, well-designed controls.

Unlike another reviewer, I have had no problems at all with radio reception.

The only negative is that the self-adjusting display (which is supposed to adjust to ambient light) gets too bright in the middle of the night. Certainly not enough to wake anyone up (and we are light sleepers), but a little jarring when coming back to bed after getting up for some other reason.

Overall, we are very pleased and would definitely buy this clock radio again.

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It's a pretty good clock, but the fact that the alarm stays on for the next day is frustrating. I bought it for my wife and she doesn't need the alarm every morning. It'd be nice if once you turned the alarm off in the morning it wouldn't automatically be activated the next morning. I'm sure this is a nice feature for some people, but it'd be nice if there was an option.

What I like most about the clock radio is that the alarm starts off soft and gets louder gradually so you aren't awakened by a really loud alarm right away. Another feature I appreciate is that you can go backward with the time. That saves me time and irritation. Having two alarms and being able to choose between radio and buzzer are necessary items as well. I recommend this inexpensive, innovative item.