TELEMANIA 025400 inVoca" Digital PLL Voice Activated Clock Radio (TELEMANIA 025400)

• INVOCA VOICE ACTIVATED DIGITAL CLOCK RADIO

First, the good news. This radio is better than the $20 clock radio I bought a few years back. The bad news? I spent US$70 to purchase a digital PLL, Phase Loop Lock, radio which, while is a good concept, is heavily penalized by a puny thin-wired FM antenna that defeats the whole purpose of having a digital tuner which attempts to correct for distortions in FM broadcasting by correcting the signal phase error: well you get the idea. I have been able to partially improve reception by connecting my puny littl FM antenna wire to the screw of my nearest grounded outlet, and using my rented apartment's grounded wiring as a house-wide antenna. Not much of an improvement.

The clock keeps poor time, and the voice commands are unreliable. My Brookstone PLL clock radio (another story) uses the broadband network to keep perfect time. My newest radio is a poorly engineered clock radio, which is overpriced for the reliability it pretends to represent. The only other good news is that it requires (not included) a 9-volt battery to preserve its settings. A very complicated manual to learn the basics.

I have recently upgraded the rating to three stars, an OK rating. The snooze alarm is an 8-minute snooze, and the alarm function will stay on until you manually shut it off, by pressing the snooze bar 4 times until you hear a beep. The radio's familiarity is growing on me, but I bet the iPhone market will make this radio obsolete fairly soon. The voice commands still suck. Ultimately, your success with this product's radio reception depends heavily on where this radio is located, preferably up stairs.

Update: 20 September 2011.

I have since purchased an Aluratek AIRMM01F Internet clock radio that actually keeps the correct time. If you have Internet in your house, this radio can pick up over 11,000 radio stations around the world.

So, here I am stuck with this old crappy radio. I'm too embarrrased to even sell it on Amazon. I'll look up my local Goodwill facility and see if they will take it.