Naxa NX-162 Projection Alarm Clock w/ AM/FM Radio

I returned this clock because I wanted a constant projection. This clock is very nice, but only projects when the snooze button is pushed. I gave a 5 star rating because the company was so very nice about the return and worked with me giving me my refund with no problems at all. I would do business with this company again.

I ordered this product because I thought it would project the time on the ceiling above my head in the middle of the night.

You must press the button on the top to make this happen and it only lasts a few seconds.

Not really helpful, when you must wake up enough to fumble for the button.

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Great clock radio with an outstnding projection clock. Lights up the room with easy to see digital numbers. Am loving this one

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I received this projection clock and set it up. The strange thing about it was that it projected something other than what I had programmed into the clock. And it was backwards. It was like it had a second brain all its own. I contacted the shipper and they sent out a recall shipping label, and I returned it, however, they never sent a replacement.

Item being reviewed

Naxa NX-162 Projection Alarm Clock w/ AM/FM Radio

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BOUGHT 2 FOR THE HOLIDAYS FOR THE REASON OF THE PROJECTION (KNEW MY KIDS WOULD BE THRILLED, WHICH THEY WERE TILL WE SET THE TIME, ONE CLOCK IT SHOWS THE #2 (THAT'S ALL IT SHOWS)......AND ON THE OTHER CLOCK, IT SAYS 12:45 THAT'S GREAT IF IT WASNT 11:10 (WHEN CHANGED TIME, PROJECTION TIME DIDNT CHANGE AT ALL)

CANT BELIEVE PEOPLE SAID GOOD THINGS ABOUT IT, DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR YOU TIME MAKING A RETURN. UGH.

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Teac R-4INT Wall Mountable Internet Radio with iPod Dock

• Compatible with all iPod and iPhone models
• FM radio and Internet radio tuner
• Wi-Fi connection for Internet radio
• NXT BR (Balanced Radiator) stereo speaker system
• Digital clock with dual alarm, snooze and sleep timer

I've used this product for a few days after acquiring it through the Vine program. Here are some initial impressions.

The setup was somewhat straightforward. The setup wizard located my home's wifi and connected to it without hassle. It detected the time and my current location straight from the network, which was great, although the daylight savings setting option was a bit vague and resulted in the time being set an hour earlier. This was quickly fixed through the main menu.

The remote control was not performing very well upon initial setup, but casting off the batteries that shipped with the product and replacing them with some new alkalines improved performance. I wouldn't even bother with the batteries that ship with it. If they are not DOA, they will be in short order.

The battery replacement did not completely eradicate the remote control's unreliability. I'm not exactly sure where the sensor is for the remote, but if you have the radio on a nightstand or a low table, trying to use the remote control from above the device doesn't work that well. It helps to move the remote in front of and on the plane of the radio.

Enough setup, onto the product features themselves.

iPod / iPhone dock: Works as advertised. There are many devices out there that incorporate a dock for an iPod or iPhone. It's basically table stakes to get in the game. It comes with little dock inserts for the various models of iPhones and iPods, just like everyone else. And I never use any of them because, just like all the others, they don't account for a cover on the device and so none of them really fit my device in its day-to-day state. Anyway, one feature that is nice is that if you insert your iPod/iPhone into the dock, a menu comes up on the front display that offers to take you directly to the iPod menu. No need to search for the iPod menu. But if you are just throwing the device on there to charge it and are already, say, listening to Pandora or a podcast through the internet radio, that menu disappears in a few seconds and doesn't interrupt what you are already listening to.

Pandora: Setup was easy. You log into your account and the device gives you a Pandora website to go to on your computer and a code to enter to sync the device with your account. It takes two minutes. Once done, all of my Pandora channels appear on the device. I can play my custom stations or dial up new ones. There are buttons on the remote to allow you to "like" or "dislike" a song. On the whole it works very well. The only thing I noticed is that I can't see if I have already "liked" as song on the display, and if I hit the "like" button on the remote for a song that has already been categorized that way I get no feedback. It only gives me feedback if a song is newly "liked" or "disliked". It's a minor annoyance, but given the slightly erratic performance of the remote, it always begs the question, "Did I already 'like' this song or is the remote just not picking it up?"

Internet Radio: Pretty impressive. The radio determines your location from the network and automatically gives you a "local stations" options that include any radio stations that stream. Personally, I listen to a lot of podcasts, and was able to search for my favorites with the remote and get a list of the latest available episodes. The catalog seems pretty expansive, too, as I don't consider the Mises Institute to be at the top everyone's podcast list, but I listen to it all the time and the radio found it without an issue.

Sound: I'm not an audiophile by any means, but this unit kicks out some nice sound in my opinion. I was impressed at the volume available and there is a selection of equalizer settings (including custom bass/treble settings) that let you tweak the sound to your liking.

Untested features: I have not tried the alarms (there are two), sleep, or music library functions. I am assuming the music library will detect available shared media from computers on your network and make them available to the device, similar to something a PS3 can do.

Glitches: Obviously, when your wireless network goes down, the internet radio goes down. The device can't be blamed for my/your wireless outages. The remote is also not quite intuitive in places. Instead of hitting the "menu" button when it seems like you would, you hit the left arrow button. Stuff like that.

Value: Current price on Amazon (less than half MSRP) makes it a consideration, I think. Value is subjective, of course, but I think most people will be happy with the product in the 160-range, but would feel like it was overpriced at MSRP.

Overall: Frankly, I was expecting less. We're only a few days in with the product, and we've had some dropouts that I am attributing to my flaky network. If you can get used to the navigation, most will be happy with the gadget. Solid sound and feature set. Could be the sole unit used in a small apartment if desired.

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I have had a lot of fun with this radio! I'm no audiophile, but to this casual listener, the sound is amazing. Out of the box, the audio is just big and round. I have an older BOSE alarm clock/CD player, and this radio sounds much better, if that means anything. There are the usual equalizer settings, so you can customize as you will.

Set up was easy, if a bit tedious. The radio has an Ethernet port, but I easily added it to my hidden wireless network. You select letters and numbers using a wheel on the radio itself or using the arrows on the remote control. You use the same technique for anything you have to enter: search terms, passwords, logins, etc.

The remote control is the most functional one I've received with a radio/alarm clock. It's bigger than most radio remotes I've seen, but it's capable of doing anything you can do on the radio itself. So it's not just a power switch and channel and volume changer like some of the others I've used.

I've used Pandora, the Internet radio, and docked my iPhone 4, and all worked seamlessly. I've had the radio a little over a week, and I've used it several times. One time, I experienced silence for 20 or 30 seconds when it suddenly had to reconnect to my network.

It has the usual alarm clock functions. Each dual alarm can be set to go off once, daily, each weekday, or each weekend day. Ultimately, however, I was unable to use this as a bedside alarm clock. First of all, at one foot wide by eight inches deep, it's footprint is too big for my already-crowded nightstand. Also, my nightstand sits a little higher than my bed. The display (which is too small to read more than a few feet away) is set at about a 45 degree angle, midway between vertical and horizontal. I can't see it lying down. I do wish the display was larger and set more vertically.

Because of these issues, and because I already have most of the radio's functions available to me in my bedroom, I decided to put the radio in my kitchen where I enjoy it immensely while puttering around there. And when I unplugged the radio to move it from the nightstand to the kitchen, it saved all my settings. Because I didn't find a place for a backup battery, I was worried I would have to reconfigure everything. But it just reconnected to my network, reset the date and time, and was ready to go immediately. Bonus!

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I wanted to like this iPod dock with internet radio, but I really wasn't thrilled with it. The foot print of this device is rather large (about the size of a sheet of printer paper). Set up was a bit of a pain with the dial "keyboard". The dial is a bit on the stiff side and I just found it irritating to use. Once it was set up using Pandora with the dock was easy but it wasn't any easier than using it with an iPhone and a speaker only dock.

Sound quality for this dock was good, but I didn't think it was anything spectacular. In fact, I think the sound quality on my cheap Skull Candy ipod pipe is better.

I'm absolutely not a fan of the "wall mountable" feature. To use this function, you would essentially have to put your iPod into the dock so that it is parallel with the floor. I couldn't imagine putting my iPhone into that dock with it in that position.

The dock works but I found the set up to be a pain and the size to be cumbersome. I suppose if space and money are no object it's an OK product but I wouldn't buy this if I were in the market for a new speaker dock for my iPhone.

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We use this in the office mainly for the function of Pandora. It has been great so far, very easy to sync with pandora account onlnine by adding and deleting stations, etc. The sound is very clear. You can even skip forward, and give a song a thumbs up or thumbs down on the device. We did a lot of research for a product that could do this and for the price this is great.

EDIT: This unit should be able to charge the iPhone 4S as well, since the charging portion is identical to the 4. Still recommended.

--

I was really tempted to rate this radio with 5 stars, since it is one of the better internet radios I've encountered. It is not perfect, but it's definitely worth careful consideration.

The big selling point for me is that this radio will do internet radio AND it will charge many iPhones (3G, 3GS, 4) and iPods with the universal i-connector. If you don't have one of these devices and/or don't care if you can charge your device, you can still play music from ANY device with a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. Compared to the competition, which appears to be one player from Grace (sold through Sharper Image), this unit deserves to be considered.

In addition, it's quite a good alarm clock: you can wake to any function (internet radio, regular radio, etc), there are two completely independent alarms that can be set to go on certain days but not others, you can specify the volume of each alarm, etc. None of this interferes with the sleep function that goes in 15 minute increments. I mention this because some older Sony models allowed either an alarm OR the sleep function... There is no battery back-up, but you can set the machine to automatically update the time after a power outage. The alarm works well. For those days when it really matters, you can always use the iPhone as a back-up.

Internet performance will depend on your router, but I had mine up and running (VERY reliably) from across the house in about 2 minutes. For other products (notably a certain wireless Brother monochrome printer) I've spent up to 2 hours messing around with this type of thing so I was impressed.

The interface on the radio is a little clunky, and the remote is required for certain operations. I quickly and easily started to use Pandora (the like/dislike buttons clearly an afterthought on the remote control, and not present on the radio), searched for and found a selection of internet radio stations. Interestingly, some BBC stations (but not the world service) appear to be blocked, presumably because I'm not paying a license fee. The thing which blew my mind was when I searched for podcasts of a particular NPR show. Within seconds, I had a choice of shows from the last ten days. Basically, that's free on-demand radio of my favorite broadcasts in seconds. I might buy another for my kitchen.

The one thing I did not check is how easy it would be to mount this thing on the wall and still charge an iPhone. I guess it would probably work since the connector is at an angle. I have it on my bedside table, where it's the size of two generous hardback books.

As I mentioned, there are some minor annoyances. The clickwheel is fiddly and the remote is only marginally better. My biggest annoyance is the display, which can only be dimmed with the remote, and that setting is not saved when the radio switches off. Huh? For such a great alarm clock, this seems like an oversight. Still, the features are amazing, the sound is really pretty good, and the unit looks quite attractive. For other rooms of the house, it would be perfect, but you probably wouldn't need the alarm or the iPhone charging feature, at which point there are cheaper options available. Still, I like it so much, I might buy another for my kitchen anyway.

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Tenergy Centura AA Low Self-Discharge LSD NiMH Rechargeable Batteries, 6 Card 24xAA

• Very slow self discharge maintains 85% residual capacity after 1 year of storage and 70% residual capacity after 2 years of storage
• Apr. 4 time more shots than with alkaline batteries. High performance even at low temperatures down to -10 C during your winter vacation
• Designed for enhanced performance for high drain applications such as digital cameras, CD players, portable audio devices, hand held games, 2-way radios, PDAs, and other portable high drain digital electronics
• Can be recharged for up to 1000 times, providing big saving by replacing hundreds of throw away AA batteries.
• Can be rapidly charged with any quick charger, smart chargers, plug in charger or universal chargers

The only trouble I have had of any kind was a charger that committed suicide taking out 4 cells by literally cooking them from the inside out. The remaining 12 cells in the set being charged at the same time have continued to function quite well.

I would prefer a larger MAH rating sometimes but doubt you can pack what I desire into the same package size so I settle for quick changing batteries. I have made my own packs using easily available holders to double, triple or even quintuple my time to depleted.

Voltages measured when removing cells from any charger vary from between 1.3v and 1.6v which worries me a little but as long as they keep powering the various devices they were purchased for I will accept that variability.

The charge times (in smart chargers) are quite long to me compared to other NIMH batteries but as this is my first experience with the LSD and that may be normal.

I can recycle a set of regular (years old) 2200mah NIMH in about 10 hours total, nearly double that for these. (recycle is a mode on one of my chargers which discharges then charges each cell individually).

Some devices and situations seem to discharge these more/less rapidly than other types of batteries (regular NIMH, NICD, etc.) since many of my devices have always preferred one chemistry over another I will also assume this is normal.

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I have about 60 of these batteries and I can tell you they are worth every bit of what they cost. For those of you who haven't used rechargeable's and those that haven't researched rechargeable's in the last 5 years these are truly the best rechargeable's in the AA, AAA, C, D and 9V format. They are not lying when they say they will hold their charge for a year. We use them almost exclusively in children's toys and for that purpose they are just as good as Alkaline's. We originally used regular rechargeable's but had to recharge them every month because of their quick self-discharge rate which meant taking apart every toy to get them out, but with these I only occasionally have to recharge them because if the toy is not used the battery doesn't die it will hold its charge for months then operate as soon as the toy is used then continue holding for months until the toy is used again. Since kids don't use their toys continuously they last about 6 months to a year in your average baby toy before needing a recharge. Obviously the more the kid plays with that toy the faster it dies but you get the point. Now for the tech stuff: These batteries have about 2000Mah @ 1.2V which is = to 2.4 Watts. Your average Alkaline at a its best discharge rate of 100Mah has 2200Mah @ 1.5V which is = 3.3 Watts. These Tenergy calls can recharge 1000+ times which means you can recharge them every day for 3 years or once a month for 83 years, however I read somewhere that these batteries will only last 27 years due to chemical breakdown regardless of recharges, but still 27 years!! For that you could recharge them every 10 days. I recommend a stockpile of these to replace all your alkaline needs.

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I have used these for a few months after doing some review reading. They do seem to work well. I use a lacrosse smart charger and its nice not having to buy batteries anymore. Just toss them in the charger!

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I ordered these batteries because I had heard the really do hold a charge much longer than other brands. I now have proof that they do hold a longer charge. They also seem to not discharge as quickly as some other brand names.

I would buy these again and I do recommend them.

Best Battery life of all batteries. I got these for my son for all his rechargable things including my grand children's toys. There is a charger made by Tenergy also that is great, Charges lots of batteries at one time. This is a product to buy!

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Nokia N78 Unlocked Phone with 3.2 MP Camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, MP3/Video Player, and MicroSD Slot--U.S

This is Nokia N78 North American version as sold by Amazon. It can run on the 3G frequencies of AT&T. It is brown back cover and black in front. I know in other markets you can get other back colors like blue, but North American version only has the brown back cover.

The phone looks really cool. It is all black, cant see any keys when it is not lighted. When phone is lighted, you can see the keys and number keys due to backlighting. The number keys are flush on just four horizontal lines. I did not find any problems pressing the particular number keys.

The box advertises 3 months of free voice guided navigation, but inside there is no license code. I contacted Nokia over email and they asked me to call them. Now I dont really need voice guided navigation so I am going to save the hassle of calling customer service, but just to let you know, you shall have to call them to get it. I have googled and this is a widespread problem in other asian markets too, seems like a goof up on their packaging side. Apart from that, of course the Nokia Maps application is free. But even better is the Google Maps free application.

The voice quality is good, volume is a bit low, but I am bit old fashioned in those regards, these days all phones have this kind of volume. The surfing speeds are great, especially with WiFi. 3G on AT&T is fast too. You dont need to configure anything, just put in a AT&T SIM card and it auto configures all it needs for voice, sms, mms, internet. Pretty cool.

This is the only phone I have ever seen where I was blown off by the firmware upgrade process. Most phones ask you to connect the phone with a cable to a kludgy application on the PC, and after lot of headache, half of the time you are able to connect. For N78, the manual says the same, but inside the phone is a FOTA (Firmware over the Air) app provided by Nokia, I used it over AT&T 3G, and it downloaded the latest firmware from Nokia server, upgraded, rebooted and ready to go in like 5 minutes. Really really impressive.

The phone has it all, GPS, Wi-Fi, suports SIP profiles for Voip (you can use Fring), you can use the phone as wireless accesspoint using JoikuSpot, bluetooth latest profiles are supported including Remote Sim mode (an external device can use the SIM inside your phone via bluetooth, howz that for a modern car interface), text to speech for reading messages, man the list goes on and on.

You dont need to record voice tags for Contacts, whenever you enter a contact, the software automatically renders a voice rendition for the name, and then for calling, you just say the name, and it finds the right one like 95 out of 100 times, even though I have a indian ascent. Same way when some one calls you, the phone can say the name aloud, like john doe calling.

The camera is 3.2 MP and I am fine with it, I am not big fan of huge MP cameras in general. It does fairly good job of taking photos and videos. You can pause and continue videos which means you can make a big video in small parts. You have all the usual stuff of mode settings for camera, auto focus, flash. Dont expect this camera to be the only one to use, expect it to be a side camera, not your main camera. You can share directly to Ovi, Flickr or Vox. I have tried Ovi and Flickr, and Ovi seems to be bit buggy, hopefully will improve over time.

The OS itself is cool, does job pretty well, has some minor bugs, but those can always be repaired by Nokia via firmware update. This one has latest feature pack 2, which is more eye candy basically.

The phone does not have a accelerometer, which means it will not change screen orientation automatically when you tilt the phone around, and you cannot play accelerometer based games. Not a big deal for me. The new model N79 has it, but its priced higher.

Instead of using Nokia browser which is good too, go for Opera Mini and you will be absolutely stunned. Very fast, great rendering, you can see any web page just normally like you would on PC (ie you have option to say that hey website, don't treat me as phone, give me what you would normally give), and its quite usable. There is also a beta version browser called Skyfire which even showed me Flash!

For the price (around 300) right now, I think its smart decision. And yea, it comes with cool headset and data cable. Only thing missing from box is car charger which anyway doesn't come with any phone.

I waited for 2 years for the iPhone 3g and finally I bought the Nokia N78 instead, and I am not regretting my decision. I don't want to be slave of AT&T and Apple, instead with Nokia I am master of my device.

I am really impressed. Go get it for this price at amazon.

I really wanted to like the N78 filled to the brim with all sorts of features in a very attractive case but it was just too buggy to live with. Being able to set the phone up as a wireless access point using the brilliant JoikuSpot download was incredible, and certainly one of the things I'll miss most as I repackaged this and ship it back to Amazon.

I feel (or at least hope) that my unit was just defective, so take some of the issues I had with a grain of salt it may not happen on all devices, but here are some of the things I experienced:

1. Camera zoom stopped working after the first picture taken. It's a digital zoom, so not the most critical thing in the world, but still annoying when you want to frame a shot and can't. This was fixed when performing a factory reset using the *#7370# combination, however once I tried re-importing contacts, the camera zoom would break again.

2. I kept getting the phone's welcome message about twice a day no damnit, I don't want to see an introductory video on how to use the phone, leave me alone already!

3. Browser would crash and freeze constantly.

4. Phone would randomly restart like right after going into Contacts to make a call.

What I liked

* JoikuSpot. One of the primary reasons I bought a Nokia the ability to have a 3G based wireless access point on me at all times is really powerful and useful.

* Screen. Bright, crisp, very nicely done

* Design. Obviously very subjective, but I enjoyed looking at it in my hand not something you can say about most Nokias

* Predictive text. Coming from an old Motorola, I hadn't realized how horrible I had it.

* Internet radio. I don't use my phone too much for music, but having all those internet radio stations has come in handy a few times and it's a pretty handy feature.

What I didn't like:

* Sluggish interface. This is my first Nokia smartphone, so I was expecting to see it fly based on all the reviews comparing this to previous Nokia models. There was a noticeable lag in everything I did. With fewer than 20 contacts on my phone, it took 1-2 seconds to load my list of contacts meaning I couldn't just press "Contacts + first letter" to start filtering names right away I had to pause for a second or two.

* Menu-laden UI. I know there are plenty of shortcuts for this, but really, somebody needs to be taken out back and put out of their misery for the ridiculous number of menu options put in this phone. How often do people really make video calls does that really have to be a default option when d-padding a contact's phone number?

* Slow default browser. Opera Mini was orders of magnitude faster, but links from emails still open in the default browser, so having that suck still makes things frustratingly slow

* Lack of camera lens cover. Not having it makes me nervous about ever putting the phone down on a hard surface

Overall, I gave it 3 stars because I really liked the form factor, the screen, and just the sheer power of what it could do. If I could be assured that a new N78 wouldn't have the obvious issues mine had, I'd probably give it another go as there's really nothing else out on the market that has all this has for those in US 3G territory until the Xperia X1 comes out.

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I ordered this phone from amazon, and they got it to me really quick!

From the moment I opened the phone I loved it. It was sleek, it felt great in my pocket, and the screen was bright! My only reserve on the screen though, after a few short hours of simply slipping it in my pocket, with nothing else in them, and normal use with nothing extreme, I noticed a slight scratch on the screen. I feel a screen protector is definitely necessary.

At first I thought the keys were going to be a pain to use, but they actually weren't too bad, they were definitely unique, that is for sure. They then became second nature to text on.

I was pretty excited about using the Joiku spot feature, which I tried and tried to get it to work, but to no avail. I even tried to reinstall it from the Nokia Download section of the phone and it gave me an installation error. Updating the firmware didn't work either.

While that wasn't a breaking point for me, because I didn't mind tethering the phone to my laptop (which is REALLY easy to do), it was a little letdown. :(

The voice quality of the phone (after all it is a phone) was okay, definitely not the greatest, but it was passable. This of course is very subjective to what is great.

I noticed the battery life was awesome! I still had full bars, even after playing with the features for a while and installing some apps like Opera Mini and some other Java apps.

Unfortunately, after about three weeks of having the phone it developed problems. After a full charge and a short phone call or two, the phone would get abnormally warm, almost too hot to put to my ear, and the battery would drain VERY quickly.

I did check to see if there were any open apps, but the only things that were open was "Standby" and the Menu. I had to send it back to amazon. :(

While I may have had a faulty phone, it does scare me to get another. I want one, but I'm almost thinking about getting another model.

Despite my problem and some weird quirks, I would still recommend this phone to anyone else.

Read Best Reviews of Nokia N78 Unlocked Phone with 3.2 MP Camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, MP3/Video Player, and MicroSD Slot--U.S Here

This phone has got lots of features for low price.

keys and navi wheel:

1. The navi button is very poor. Often times it doesn't work.

2. The response to the key press is very slow.(symbian OS)

camera:

3. The camera quality is very good. Both photos and video come out well!

4. The phone freezes often.

GPS:

5. One good thing is you can use nokia map loader software to load maps and stay offline and use GPS.

6. But if you buy this phone for GPS you got to reconsider. The GPS reception is very poor. Most of the time you won't get the satellite signal.

MP3:

7. MP3 playback and the FM transmitter quality is good.

wifi:

8. Wifi and browsing are amazing. But you can't open multiple instance of the browser. You may need to search for a good browser.

9. If you have data plan then you can also use google maps and gmail application in it.

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I must admit that I'm a Nokia diehard fan, so my review could be considered as biased by some people, nonetheless I'll try to be as objective as possible.

Cons:

Excellent price (I paid only $300, it was an offer I couldn't let pass)

Symbian smartphone: everything you could possibly need to comply with today's demands regarding internet connection (the Wi-Fi feature is just perfect as well as Nokia's web browser), the MS Office and PDF compatibility is something basic in this world, and the GPS adds a great value.

Huge capacity with the microSD slot (I use an 8GB, High Capacity, Class 4 microSD card)

The functions installed by Nokia are simply magnificent: from the FM transmitter to the music player, everything is just superb.

Huge connectivity.

The screen is very clear, and it's size is what I really love!

The option to personalize your menu's and almost every single aspect of your interface is an incredible advantage.

Cons:

Firmware still has some serious issues (i.e bugs)

The back cover is not a tight close, I mean that it moves a little which is (in my opinion) very annoying while writing a text message, just to give an example.

The surface get dirty with almost every single thing you can think about. Just holding the phone to check it's status will leave a mark. I particularly hate this,

The camera is not as good as I expected. The focus is sometimes hard to adjust, depending on light condition and object's proximity.

Volume (not many options, only 10 different levels).

Others (cons/pros, it depends on you):

Size (bigger than my old Nokia 6300, smaller then many other Smartphones)

Looks (depends on what you want your phone for: style or functionality)

Keyboard and soft keys (it's different, let face it. You get used to it with some practice and patience)

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Coby MP827-8G 8 GB 2.8-Inch Video MP3 Player with Touchscreen, FM, Stereo Speakers and MiniSD Card S

• 2.8 inch color TFT LCD screen with Integrated flash memory and Intuitive touchscreen controls
• Integrated stereo speakers, miniSD card slot for easy memory capacity upgrades (miniSD card not included) and Integrated FM radio
• Multimedia powerhouse plays music, video (Videos may need to be converted with the included software for device playback), photos, and text
• Plays digital music from most online stores and subscription services, ID3 and LRC support for song and lyric information display
• Calendar mode, USB 2.0 Hi-speed for fast file transfers, Integrated rechargeable battery
• 2.8 inch color TFT LCD screen with Integrated flash memory and Intuitive touchscreen controls
• Integrated stereo speakers, miniSD card slot for easy memory capacity upgrades (miniSD card not included) and Integrated FM radio
• Multimedia powerhouse plays music, video (Videos may need to be converted with the included software for device playback), photos, and text
• Plays digital music from most online stores and subscription services, ID3 and LRC support for song and lyric information display
• Calendar mode, USB 2.0 Hi-speed for fast file transfers, Integrated rechargeable battery

I took a very long time to decide on this item because of the bad reviews. (PLEASE IGNORE THEM!)

I've had my Coby MP827 for a couple of weeks now and although it's not perfect, in my opinion, it is an incredible device. (Especially for the money.)



Now the original review...

#1 You MUST CALIBRATE THE TOUCHSCREEN before you do anything else. If you do not, you might have to jab and press and slide like crazy to get things to work. This might seem like a bad selling point, but the fact that you are allowed to adjust the sensitivity is a major PLUS in my mind. (I just wish Coby would have made the suggestion loud and clear from the beginning in their instructions.) I was lucky enough to read the reviews here at Amazon that suggested this. My hat is off to them because it made all the difference for me.

#2 After calibrating, don't get frantic and anxious. If, and when, any icons might not respond as you expect, please turn your attention to your own actions, or your own understanding of how this cute little beastie works! So far, there have only been a few times where I've been a bit frustrated, but eventually I found that I wasn't waiting the occasional 1 or 2 seconds required for the software to respond. (I believe that most of the bad reviews came from these touchscreen characteristics.) Also, a few "icons" such as the little left or right arrows for changing the time and date, WILL NOT respond to a full fingertip touch. It took me quite a while to realize that a Stylus kind of touch, as with the tip of a gentle fingernail, finally got the response I was looking for. If I had not taken the time to gently and calmly experiment with this, my frustration would have boiled over for sure. (Again, Coby SHOULD have explained this characteristic with a few of the smaller icons because it undoubtedly confuses everybody who buys the thing. Except perhaps for owners of many other mp3 players. This is my first.)

HOWEVER, the fact that Coby's staff has excluded a few pieces of info about the device, doesn't mean that it's "a piece of trash" like some others have been ranting. It only means that there is a lot more value lurking within the 827's Operating System than meets the eye. In other words, this device is powerful and pleasing to use, but people who can't tackle the learning curve will probably think it's a piece of junk. (Their loss, not mine, except that their frantic noise almost put me off my purchase. COBY please take notice of this, your lack of information is producing a lot of bad reviews.)

I've been learning while buying many items through Amazon lately, that one must wade through the verbal mud of those who never grew up. "The truth is out there," but you have to dig a little for it and avoid the nasty negativists who spout emotions but no facts. (Emotions are NOT tools of cognition.) :-)

#3 Coby also left out -that if you decide to upgrade the memory, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to buy this particular unit, the 827 IS NOT compatible with SDHC memory chips. (At least my unit isn't.) HC means High Capacity which is a somewhat recent development, and the SDHC chip I bought DID NOT WORK with this unit. Now to be fair, Coby's documentation DOES say, that it is upgradeable with SD chips, but since you have to be aware of the differences, and then search high and low to find them these days, it only seems logical that the 827 would work with the HC chips. After searching the net like a madman, I finally decided to simply buy a HC chip and see for myself. (THIS IS NOW TO YOUR BENEFIT AS WELL MY OWN.) SDHC chips WILL NOT WORK WITH THIS UNIT. Maybe that could be changed with a firmware update, but I'm not counting on it.

For me, this wasn't a problem, because the chip I got does work with a digital camera I have, expanding the number of photos I can take into the thousands. (Very cool.)

I HAVE an old style 8 GB SD chip on order, and when (and if) it works, I will get in here and edit this review.

#4 TIPS -When you see the little circle (with an arrow on it,) on the screen, it means that the screen will turn from vertical to horizontal like the more expensive units do. The only catch is, the lack of an accelerometer which performs this little miracle automatically. If you want the view to change, you have to press that little icon. (Again, lots of value if you know how it works.) Now if you are too lazy to press a little icon, then go ahead and spend 2 or 3 or 4 times more to buy some other unit.

Other items are well covered in other reviews, except for the availability of a screen protector for this unit. I couldn't find this model listed on any of the available protectors, and the best I could do is something in a forum about buying a cheap universal protector from WalMart and trimming it down to size. The person claimed that it worked perfectly, but I have yet to verify this. (Once again, Coby really should get their act together and keep people informed about details like this.)

OTHER THOUGHTS;

I've found that the battery life isn't all that long. Even the internal pdf documentation gives 7 hours as the maximum. I have yet to use it long enough at one siting to confirm this, but from the indicator while I'm using it, I'd say that it's about right. (Especially if you are playing a lot of videos.)

AUDIO QUALITY;

I've spent my entire life in professional audio of one sort or another. (4 Emmy Awards for Sound-Effects Editing for TV and Movies.) IMO, almost any modern digital audio is great. (Play a scratchy old vinyl album sometime.) This unit sounds pretty good to me, especially through my huge Carver Amp and KEF studio reference monitors. When you consider the mp3-process itself, and the price for this little unit...it's a bloody miracle! :-)

To sum up...I am totally satisfied with this player. I already had a gizmo to play a portable CD player through my car's built-in cassette unit, with an attached earphone mini-jack, so all I had to do was plug that jack into the MP827, slip my "dummy" cassette into the slot in my car's cassette player, and turn it on. (It's really great to have all my songs right there in my car.) Once it gets going, I don't have to attend to it at all, so getting a "using a cellphone" ticket, shouldn't be an issue. Videos playback cool on this unit too, and as I keep adding them, I'm amazed at how much memory is still left. When I add another 8GB memory chip, I'll have much more room for everything than I could possibly know what to do with. Also, I've been working with .lrc files to get some synchronized lyrics text on screen. I can report that the function actually works, but so far, the freebie software I've found for creating such files is quirky at best. (I'm still searching for the best solution to this, without laying out another stack of cash.)

LAST SUGGESTIONS:

Buy an external mp3-charger unit here at Amazon. (such as; Coby CA-80 USB AC Adapter/Charger for MP3 Players Price: $4.95 as I write this.) I got the one with two usb ports just in case, and it really does a number on this player. (Charges the thing up much faster than from the computer's usb port.) Also, the fastest way to build up your library of songs, is to suck them in directly from your CD collection. The provided software that comes with the unit makes this possible, and on my Windows-XP system, the process is really fast.

I would recommend this player to anybody and everybody, while also suggesting that they read this, and other reviews, and make use of what we have learned. Use your brain, consult your "gentle side," and this item is a real steal.

******* *********

Amazon has 2GB SD cards which should work with this unit!!! (Yay.)

My confusion, had to do with what SD cards really were and what size they come in. Anything beyond 2GB is considered High Capacity! Hence; HCSD.

In other words, you can only expand the 827's memory with an additional 2GB flashram chip. (I could not find that information anywhere!)

What Amazon has is; SDSDB-002G-B35 by SanDisk for only $5.47 as of this writing.

Finding original SD cards anywhere is a real pain, but they ARE still available. Try

>>>>>CONSIDERATIONS

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Coby AM/FM Dual Alarm Clock/Radio for iPod Docking CSMP162 (Black)

• Universal dock for iPod charges and plays your favorite iPod music
• Digital AM/FM radio
• Digital clock with 2 independent alarms and snooze/sleep timers, Wake up to your iPod, radio, or buzzer
• High-output, full-range stereo speakers
• 3.5mm audio line-in jack for use with any portable audio device (e.g., iPod shuffle), Full function remote control

This item looks cool and sounds good, but I'm sending it back for three reasons:

1) All of the item's controls are touch-sensitive pads on top, but they are completely flush so it's impossible to find them by feel. If you try to reach over and press the snooze button, you're likely to change the volume or the radio station instead. If you're sitting up, looking at the item with the lights on, the touch-sensitive controls are cool, but in a bedroom setting they're very frustrating.

2) The item includes a blue lamp, but it cannot be controlled separately from the red time display. There are three settings: lamp very bright and time normal; lamp dim and time almost too dim to read; and lamp and time both completely off. Since this is a -clockI'd like to be able to read the -timewithout having a blue lamp light up my room, but that's not possible. Ridiculous.

3) The item is larger than it seemed; my iPod Touch looks like a Nano when it's perched on top. Also, the depth is 4 inches, but the power plug sticks directly out the back so the effective depth is over 5 inches.

If you have a large nightstand, #3 might not bother you, but after experiencing #1 and #2, I had to wonder if Coby gave this any real-world testing before releasing it.

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It's okay for a clock/radio that you can dock and play your iPod. I bought it to use as an alarm clock to wake to my iPod Nano 2nd gen. I tried two other brands before getting the Coby. My decision was based on lights, style and features. I also went to Coby's website to peruse the online manual to learn a bit about this model before buying.

The clock has the classic red LED face instead of the backlit LCD found on many other clocks out there. There is a blue base light that can be turned down/off like Diana writes, but they only have the three settings mentioned in Arlo's review. I find the dim setting is good enough to read the clock in a dark bedroom.

The clean and simplistic design really attracted me to this model. I like the big, read across the room clock display and the shape mimics my Nano. To keep the clean all black look I bought a black insert from iHome. They sell them at their website as accessories to their docking systems. It doesn't have the tight toleances of Apple's insert, but it fits and it works and it's black!

The touch sensitive controls on top are tricky to use especially if you're not watching what you're doing. I suggest keeping the remote handy and learning the raised button placement by touch. Don't anticipate full, rich sound either it's a clock/radio, not a HiFi stereo. However, I was able to set my Nano's EQ to help with that aspect.

In the end, as a clock/radio you can use your iPod with, it works. Is there a little adjustment to using it? Isn't there always when you get something new & different?

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Not intuitive to use at all. The "buttons" at the top are not practical and really frustrating. There are better options out there. Do not waste your time.

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I wanted a digital tuning alarm clock radio with a red LED display, these seem to be most soothing at night and more visible without my glasses (short sighted). Been looking for years, finally found this one to replace an old Sony with rotary tuning.

But: Digital tuning is best because one can have pre-sets. This unit doesn't have pre-sets.

Red LEDs are indeed soothing but this unit has a blue light shining from under the main section. Had to fix that with some black tape! It's impossible to turn off the blue light completely, despite what the manual promises. It is possible to turn off the red LEDs completely, which can be confusing. The number display is large, very visible but legibility is hampered by the 1970s era number style.

Sound quality is awful, the speakers point downwards into a 1" gap under the clock (where the blue light is) and therefore sound very muffled.

Controls on top of the unit are based on touch sensitive areas that cannot be found by touch in the dark.

A small, easily lost remote is needed for many functions, such as turning on a sleep timer. Try doing that when you're tired and/or emotional.

I have yet to try the iPod dock. The sound quality does not inspire me to bother.

The smooth black top surface is truly excellent. At attracting dust.

No where in the manual is it described how one might cancel an alarm. Turns out you need the remote for that.

Opened the box on Christmas morning, plugged it in and it would play the ipod, but that was all it would do.

You can't adjust the time nor the volume by the remote or by the buttons on it.

Just not happy with it at all.

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Nokia N97 mini 8 GB Unlocked Phone - U.S. Version with Full U.S. Warranty (Black)

January 9 2010: I amended the review to add some details about a couple problems I've had with the phone, slowdowns which lead to lockups and twice it suffered a system crash that leads to wiping out the phone's memory. I devoted a lot of the amended review to a hassle I had with Nokia's customer service. I realize that's unfair and irrelevant to the review of the phone, so I removed it.

Although it says I bought the phone from Amazon I actually bought it direct from Nokia. I canceled the Amazon order when I thought they had the wrong color. I'm sorry that happened because buying it from Amazon would have been a better experience. (another edit: since installing the new firmware, any stability issues the phone had seem to have been solved)

My original review:

The quality of the materials and the fit/finish & construction is the first thing I noticed, taking this out of the box. It has nice surfaces everywhere, a shiny steel bezel on the front and highlights around the bottom section, a matte black (brownish) metal finish on the bottom with a steel battery door and camera lens bezel. The battery door latches securely (and easily) unlike any phone I've ever owned. The phone feels heavy in a high quality way. It fits in your hand in a way that makes it feel much thinner than you would expect from the measurements. The flare at the bottom makes it feel more secure in your hand. The raised lens bezel makes it easy to avoid inadvertently using the camera lens as a finger grip.

so many pros...

-Touchscreen is very responsive and has kinetic scrolling and it's easy to stop the screen without accidentally launching something.

-Browser is full screen and looks great. (embedded con I'm not sure I like the controls that pop up for some basic stuff like "back" or bookmarks. I can't find an easy way to backtrack in sites without bringing up the clunky set of controls.)

-The 3-row back-lit keyboard is easy to see in dim light, and it looks awesome with the gray and orange illumination. The layout works great for me, I'm already comfortable with how it works and find it much nicer than keyboards with 5 rows of keys.

-16 x 9 screen has excellent color and brightness, even outside. Perfect format for watching movies full screen.

-Has native support for Flash and java so Youtubes and flash based websites look like they should. (does not support Flash 10 hopping for an update)

-When you open the keyboard the screen tilts into a good viewing angle, either for typing with your thumbs or setting it on a table. Works great for watching videos, you don't have to prop it up on something.

-Stereo speakers sound great for speaker phone. (edited to add: the speaker quality continues to impress me. They also work good for listening to the FM radio.) Music sounds outstanding through headphones, it sounds like a high-end MP3 player. Music Player has the best sorting, album art, searching, Playlist creating and ID3Tag editing I've ever seen on a phone wow.

-Accelerometer is pretty fast and all menus and screens and all but a few third-party apps have a landscape mode. You have to turn it on, it's off by default. The keyboard forces a landscape mode.

-This is the most customizable phone I've ever had. Nothing is locked in place, put it wherever it works best for you. I've already downloaded about a dozen themes and love how much you can personalize the appearance of the menus and screens, even the icons.

-The widgitized home screen is of course just as customizable but has another feature I wasn't expecting. You can swipe your finger across it and hide all the widgets so your phone display is just the wallpaper you chose and the clock at the top. Another swipe brings them back.

- Call quality and signal strength is very good what you would expect from Nokia. I'm replacing a Samsung Eternity and this phone is a dramatic contrast, it's so much better.

-All the phone stuff, voice dial, speed dial, endless contact list with all the fields you could ever need, excellent contact list access/search, full MP3 ringtones, etc. It's all there and implemented very well.

-It comes loaded with apps, all of which can be removed if you want. Email is available in a couple different ways, a pay push system or free mail client in the messaging bundle. POP3 or IMAP.

-App stores for Symbian S60 are plentiful and there are loads of free apps and themes as well as ones you pay for.

-GPS is fast to fix on a location and stays locked on very well. Works much better outside than it does indoors.

-WiFi was easy to set up with MAC address and WPA security on my home system. It seems a bit flakey about staying connected or the phone deciding which network to use for certain apps, GSM or WiFi. I haven't found the way to configure this yet but I'm sure it's in there somewhere. (edited: a call to nokia support took care of this. There is a way to make it ask which connection to use when launching)

-Headphone jack has video out and hands-free mic & music controller inside the single 3.5mm plug. A nice set of headphones with mic and music controls is included but no video cable.

-Camera is excellent from what I can tell, haven't tried the video recorder yet.

you get the idea... I really like this phone. It does everything and does it in a mature way, the OS feels like it's no-nonsense, something made for adults.

Now the cons (including a big one oops nokia!)

-limited video codec support. No DiVX. Player is from Real Player. I'm looking for a video player app to replace it any suggestions would be appreciated.

-photo viewer doesn't recognize folders. This means all your contacts, album art, phone photos and collections of photos are all in one list, not necessarily sorted in the order you would expect. It's a pain to do anything with photos (my old phone worked the same way). ***I see there are third--party apps that seem to address all the issues.***

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2010 ES RECEIVER Model "STR-DA5600ES"

• Model "STR-DA5600ES"
• DLNA Live Audio Server that can stream music to other DLNA clients
• H.A.T.S. clock synchronization for HDMI and DSD
• DCAC EX Speaker Auto-Calibration with Speaker Relocation (distance and degree) and Automatic Phase Matching (APM)

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT PRODUCT

I AM USING IT FOR 1 YEAR AND IT IS SO GREAT !

IF I COULD GIVE 10 STARS I WOULD GIVE IT TO THAT PRODUCT.

SOON THERE WILL BE IN THE MARKET THE NEW MODEL: SONY STR-DA5700ES. IT WILL BE IN THE MARKET ON MID JANUARY 2012 AND YOU CAN SEE IT IN YOUTUBE. THE PRICE WILL BE ARROUND $2000 AT SONY

THANK YOU

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5 STARS + FOR THAT WONDERFUL EXCELLENT RECEIVER

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT PRODUCT

I AM USING IT FOR 1 YEAR AND IT IS SO GREAT !

IF I COULD GIVE 10 STARS I WOULD GIVE IT TO THAT RECEIVER.

ONE MONTH AGO , WE HAVE PURCHASE ALSO THE NEW SONY RECEIVER , THE SONY STR-DA5700ES, AND THE NEW MODEL IS A PICE OF JUNK !

IF ANY OF YOU DEAR CUSTOMERS , CAN GET THE STR-DA5600ES TAKE IT ! IT IS THE BEST SONY RECEIVER EVER MADE ! I AM TALKING WITH EXPERIENCE AS I HAD ALL THEM BEST ES SERIES RECEIVERS , AND THE STR-DA5600ES IS THE BEST OF THEM ALL !!!

THANK YOU

ETAI RONEN

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Memorex Projection Clock Radio

I bought this for it's projection capability. As far as the alarm clock/radio portion of it I think it is as good as any other basic model. The projection number size and brightness was just fine on our 8' ceilings. It takes up less space at the base than other models which is another plus.

I ordered the Memorex MC2896 Projection Clock Radio to replace another brand that had given out. I looked it up under "atomic projection clocks", but unfortunately did not notice that this was not one of them. The time is easy to set, however you have to set it for the main clock and the projection clock separately. The power cord is not long enough for my purposes, it's about 5 feet long, but it does have space for a 9V battery, not included. The projected numbers are a good four inches high, but you can only move them up or down, and it has to be very dark in the room to see the numbers on the ceiling, which makes it pretty useless. (So I bought a standard battery operated wall clock and placed it across the room from my bed.) It has a hokey am/fm radio with a loose wire antennae and it offers no method to see what channels you are on or what you are changing to. It just digitally displays the time. I would have sent it back, but I didn't feel like hassling with repackaging. Next time I'll do better research and hope more reviews have been posted.

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my girlfriend saw my clock simiular to this one, and really liked it, so i bought her this one. after setting it up and showing her how everything works, she loves it. it is really nice to just look up at the ceiling or at the wall and see what time it is, with out having to move from a comfortable position. and the projected time is big enough to see without having to put my glasses on. plus, she thinks i paid a lot more for it than i actually did!!

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I love this clock. very easy to work and love how I can put the time on the wall or ceiling any where I need it to be. It is also very slim so it takes up little space. Easy to read really love it.

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It's exactly what it says it is. Practical & functional. My boyfriend is very happy with it. So easy to use: just open your eyes, while in bed.

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