- AM/FM/RDS with Digital Tuning
- iPod Dock
- WWV Atomic Clock
- 5 presets with dual alarm sleep timer
- Adjustable Dimmer
I recently purchased this product for my son (11) to use as an alarm clock. I must say that I was VERY pleased with the sound and overall quality of this i-pod clock radio after a LENGTHY (and somewhat frustrating) search. This category is extremely crowded with options and we searched for quite some time at local retailers as well as online. Retailers have these stocked in at least 3 locations, too, which makes the search all that much more challenging. I'm so happy we found this one as it is NOT in-stock at many (if any) local stores!
GOOD This is one of the FEW appliances of this type that offer a LINE OUT option. That was important because we thought we might want to connect it to a set of external speakers in the future, however, it excluded nearly every option out there, so we almost gave that up. The other thing we like is the 8 different brightness settings as many of the reviews on other products listed brightness as a complaint one way or the other. Again, the sound is very good it's a step down from the BOSE Wave Radio in this regard, but that's also at a $350 price point. It is by far the best we were able to hear at this price range. The integrated atomic clock is a nice feature and one that we missed entirely and really like is the RDS capability that scrolls the name of the station and/or the song/artist that is playing at the time.
NOT AS GOOD The remote seems to need a fairly direct line-of-sight to the radio to operate well. We've only had it a few weeks, but we were thinking that the battery in the remote might be a bit weak if it was in inventory for a while before it shipped. Perhaps we'll know more on that later.
It's too bad this product isn't more widely distributed because I think it would do quite well. This should most definitely be in your short list of options. If we change our minds about that, we'll update this review later. My son wanted to give this review 4.5 stars, but that wasn't possible, so I suggested that we give it 5 and then add an attribute for the remote.
NICE WORK, SANGEAN!!
Buy FM-RBDS / AM / Aux-in Digital Tuning Atomic Clock Radio with iPod Dock Now
I've had the RCR-10 for about a month and am very pleased with it. It works perfectly with my 4th generation iPod touch and looks really sharp on my nightstand. Before buying it, I did a pretty exhaustive search of all clock radios equipped with an iPod dock, and this appeared to be the best available for under $100. Occasionally it goes on sale for about $60 and is a no-brainer at that price.
This product is ALMOST worthy of 5 stars I'd give it 4.5 if I could.
Features I especially like:
The build quality is quite good: the speaker grille is real metal, and the buttons on top are real pushbuttons, not cheap membrane keys. The unit is broad and flat, has a bit of weight to it, and stays put on your nightstand. It won't fall over as you flail around for the snooze button (which is right up front and plenty big). A particularly nice touch: it's equipped with clear rubber feet instead of the black kind that can discolor your furniture (due to plasticizer migration).
The two alarms can each be set to go off daily, only on weekdays, or only on weekends, so unless your schedule changes, you can just set the alarms once and they'll stay enabled... no need to remember to set an alarm each night.
No docking tray adapters are neededit has a sliding rear support that adapts to almost any iPhone or iPod.
The button text is backlit in a soft orange color looks really sharp and makes the unit easy to operate in the dark.
The atomic clock feature is nice to have and works fine, though the indicator does blink for a bit every hour or so, as other reviews have noted.
The AM/FM reception is very good, as one would expect from a Sangean radio.
The sound quality is excellent much better than expected for a unit this size.
The battery backup feature uses standard AA batteries.
A couple of areas could be improved:
The front surface slopes upwards. This makes the display easy to read on a nightstand, but due to the limited viewing angle of the LCD, the display will be impossible to read from your bed if you put the unit up on a high dresser or bookshelf. Another side effect of the sloped front is that more dust settles on the display.
The surface of the case is glossy black plastic, which tends to attract dust and scratch easily.
The unit won't charge a docked device while the radio is on.
The backlight does not adjust to the ambient light; you have to set the brightness manually, cycling through various levels with the snooze button.
At the lowest few brightness settings, the LCD suffers from pretty low contrast at night... the clock is barely brighter than the milky greyish blue rectangle of backlighting behind it. It can be a bit hard to read in the dark, especially if you're nearsighted.
To make this clock radio *perfect* in the next revision, Sangean should make the front less sloped and replace the backlit LCD display with a traditional segmented LED display in green (the color to which our eyes are most sensitive). This would be sharp and clear at any angle and MUCH easier to read at night. Make the backlighting of the top buttons light green to match, and make the display brightness automatically adjust itself based on ambient light. Also, since it's likely that this clock radio will outlast the next few generations of iPhones/iPods, please throw in a little snap-in plastic cover to hide the dock port once it becomes obsolete.
Read Best Reviews of FM-RBDS / AM / Aux-in Digital Tuning Atomic Clock Radio with iPod Dock Here
I've been looking for an ipod dock, radio alarm clock with an atomic clock for sometime.
I have atomic clocks throughout the house and find them very handy I never have to change or reset their time due to daylight savings or power outage.
I also like having the option to listen to either my ipod or the radio when falling asleep, and as an alarm.
This radio fits all those needs and it works very well. I liked it so much I purchase one for each of my kids.
They both liked how well the unit controlled their ipods you can use the controls to access anything once the ipod is docked. They also each setup two alarms one for school days (weekdays) and one for weekend.
All the additional functions including the sleep function, and digital radio with presets were easy to use with a little help from the manual.
The sound quality seemed great to me (but I'm not overly picky) and the radio reception was excellent compared to several other clock radio's I've had over the past several years.
While the price seemed a bit high (especially for the kids' bedrooms), atomic clocks do run higher than standard clocks. And this is the first one I've found that has the atomic clock with an ipod dock (and I've looked).
I would definitely recommend this to anyone seeking this combination of features in a clock radio.
Want FM-RBDS / AM / Aux-in Digital Tuning Atomic Clock Radio with iPod Dock Discount?
I have to agree w/ Greg D. in that it would not take that much to make this a world class product. While it's definitely the best one I've come across, I would have given it only 3.5 stars if it were possible.
I definitely don't like the blue display w/ blue backlight (the pictures in the item listing don't accurately portray the backlight, but believe me, it's there and it's BLUE). Even on its dimmest setting, it is way too bright for a dark bedroom. I would have much preferred a red display, which is easy to read in the dark, yet not so bright it illuminates the whole room. Fortunately, one of the brightness settings is "off", so I actually turn off the display before going to sleep. At least the design engineers were intuitive enough to program the display to come on when the alarm goes off, so I don't have to fumble around with the display button in the morning. Not a big fan of having to scroll through all the brightness settings just to get the display to turn off, but now I'm just being picky.
Another complaint is the design of the button controls. While they are actual push buttons, as opposed to membrane keys, they sit flush with the surface of the clock and are difficult to distinguish by feel in the dark (the buttons aren't illuminated when the display is turned off). Even worse, the buttons for the two alarms are stuck in the middle of a row of 5 buttons, so you actually have to look at the top of the clock to see what buttons you are pressing. Would it have really been that difficult to position these two buttons off to the side so they could be easily distinguished from the other 8 buttons on top of the clock?
Speaking of alarms, I find having to scroll through all the options just to set the alarm very cumbersome. Hopefully I'll get used to it, but I shouldn't have to feel that I need to take a remedial clock-setting class just to set my morning alarm.
The remote control is essentially useless. Even when pointing it directly at the face of the clock, a mere few feet away, it worked less than half the time. I haven't tried replacing the battery yet, but based on the other reviews, I doubt it would help.
One final issue (which has turned out to be not that big a deal): while the volume control is a dial, it is actually an incremented adjustment rather than a continuous one. My concern was that the increments would be too far apart (i.e., one increment would be too low, but the next one up would be too loud, with no "happy medium"). Like I said, it really hasn't been an issue for me, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. I do wish the lowest volume setting were just a tad lower, however.
On the plus side...
The sound quality is great for a clock radio, and it gets great reception. The ability to adjust the bass/treble is a plus.
The RDS display (station name, song title, artist, etc.) is a great feature.
Having station preset buttons (5 FM & 5 AM) is nice (although I wouldn't have complained if there were more).
The atomic clock automatic time-setting feature is very convenient.
Dual 7/5/2 alarms with the option of waking to radio, iPod or buzzer.
This clock is loaded w/ great features. It's just a shame more thought wasn't given to some of the finer details. I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going to keep it, but if I do, I have already considered a few "work-arounds" for some of its short-comings: I've read where some people have applied window tinting material to the face of the clock to compensate for the brightness. And I've also read where people have used adhesive rubber "dots" (for lack of a better term) to make some of the buttons more identifiable in the dark.
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I've been looking for an ipod dock, radio alarm clock with an atomic clock for sometime.
I have atomic clocks throughout the house and find them very handy I never have to change or reset their time due to daylight savings or power outage.
I also like having the option to listen to either my ipod or the radio when falling asleep, and as an alarm.
This radio fits all those needs and it works very well. I liked it so much I purchase one for each of my kids. (2 white units, and 1 black unit)
They both liked how well the unit controlled their ipods you can use the controls to access anything once the ipod is docked. They also each setup two alarms one for school days (weekdays) and one for weekend.
All the additional functions including the sleep function, and digital radio with presets were easy to use with a little help from the manual.
The sound quality seemed great to me (but I'm not overly picky) and the radio reception was excellent compared to several other clock radio's I've had over the past several years.
While the price seemed a bit high (especially for the kids' bedrooms), atomic clocks do run higher than standard clocks. And this is the first one I've found that has the atomic clock with an ipod dock (and I've looked).
I would definitely recommend this to anyone seeking this combination of features in a clock radio.
