Philips DC190 iPod Docking Clock Radio

• Play and charge your iPod
• FM digital tuner with 20 station presets
• MP3 link lets you play music from any portable device
• Gentle wake up with increasing alarm volume
• Stylish compact design

I bought this item because of it style and listed functions. It does look good, but the device is a little difficult to get used to. Just about all the control buttons are flush mounted because of this style, and as a result are sometimes hard to locate, especially when you are in a morning funk when the alarm is going off. The all-important "snooze" button is a classic case of this. It is also recessed, and you can easily miss it, smudging the beatiful smooth surfaces in your attempts to snooze it. All in all, it's OK, it is just that I bought it as a daily use alarm clock, and it is taking me a while to come to grips w/ it.

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I've had my new Philips clock for about 2 months now. It's a lot smaller than my Sony Dream Machine, which I loved for it's speakers/audio as well as the easy-to-use features like snooze, nap and switching from standard to daylight savings time. But enough about that old clock...

I purchased this clock for several reasons, but primarily for my iPod (there is a non-iPod version of this clock). For an alarm clock, I'm happy with the audio quality. It's small, it looks sleek and it's relatively easy to set up in terms of selecting the iPod for the alarm. Additionally it includes 2 alarm settings that you can associate with 1 day of the week, every day or Mon-Fri.

As an alarm clock, it's not so wonderful for two reasons. The buttons, including power, snooze and volume, feel cheap and are not easy to push/press (in order to push a button, I have to apply equal pressure on the other side of the unit). And as far as I can tell, the snooze only works for up to 30 minutes and then it automatically shuts itself off.

I'll keep this clock for awhile since it wasn't cheap and I didn't keep the packaging to return it. Or I'll bring it into work as an iPod player. Then I'll seriously consider buying a Sony for my next alarm clock.

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The Philips DC190 is a decent alarm clock and docking station. Setting up the alarm clock was simple, although I did have to consult the "Quick start guide" to learn how to set the time and the alarms. I used an old ipod photo for testing and it fit perfectly into the cradle.

With the DC190 you can set separate alarms for both the weekday and the weekend. I like to sleep later on the weekend, so it's nice not to have to remember to change the alarm on the weekends. On the other hand, the DC190 does not give the user a lot of flexibility outside of the weekday/weekend options. People who have to wake up at different times on different days, may not find this alarm clock useful. While it's easy to learn the stops involved in setting up the alarm, it would be a pain to have to change the alarm time every day. With my cheap Walgreens alarm clock, I'm able to change the alarm in a snap whereas the DC190 requires fiddling with several buttons in order to change the alarm.

The quality of the speaker is about what a person would expect at this price point. It's neither exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. The alarm increases in volume over the course of about 30 seconds before reaching its maximum volume. You can also set the volume to be either loud or soft. I found it comforting to be woken up by music as opposed to a loud beeping sound.

I recommend this system to anyone who wakes up at about the same time each day. It's easy to use and it does what it claims to do.

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I've had this docking station next to my bed for several months, and I've come to the conclusion it is junk and not worth its price. However, I still use it because it's nice having a charger and a clock even if it isn't particularly good at either function.

I hooked the device up to my Kill-A-Watt for a day of just being a clock. During that time, whatever energy it used, was beneath the ability of the Kill-A-Watt to measure. Playing the radio or a docked iPhone draws around 2 W.

As a Charging Station

I have a variety of iPhones and iPods. It is very convenient having a charger here on my bedside table, more so than having a USB charging cable which would spend half its time falling behind the table. This device, unfortunately, is less than ideal at charging an iPhone as it takes both hands to nestle an iPhone into the dock; the act of docking causes audio to play, and a warning from the iPhone about going into airplane mode to avoid cell radio interference, making docking a complicated series of shoves, touches and button pushes. Still, it's nice to have a charger, and an iPod Touch, which has no cell radio and is thinner, can be docked one handed.

As an External Speaker

These are not great speakers. They are downright cheap as could be expected in an low end alarm clock. Still, they are better than the little speaker in an iPhone and way better than the casual listening speaker in an iPod Touch. If you want to fill a bedroom with sound, these do the job. I've seen my son watch a movie on a charging iPhone while laying down, head flat on a pillow using this device for sound and it does a credible job.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, there is often an interference style noise when using the iPod/iPhone input method. I had originally thought this was due to audio frequency interference from the iPhone's cell radio, but it happens with my iPod touch. This makes the speakers worth little for playing docked iPods.

As a Clock

Nice clock for a bedroom, good choice of color, doesn't distract when you want to sleep. The numerals could be bigger for those of us with severe myopia.

As an Alarm

My major beef with the device as an alarm clock is that it has controls spread over literally 4 surfaces and it is complicated setting the device to do anything. However, I am not a big user of alarm clocks, having done without them for 20 years, and it wasn't that hard to do following the manual.

As a Radio

The radio reception seems about what you'd expect from a low end device. I can tune to a local station and it sounds OK (for FM). I wouldn't waste time listening to music, but it's good enough to wake up to.

Conclusion

I think it's too annoying using this with an iPhone, and iPod Touch sound quality is low, but the charging dock does work, so I'd avoid it in preference of better designed products made of better materials.

Philip's DC190 iPod Docking Clock Radio is a stylish iPod compatible clock radio with sleek space-age stylings resembling a device right out of the Jetson's. As far as core functionality goes I have no complaints. The clock uses a yellow/amber display set against a mirrored finish background. The clock display has 4 levels of brightness allowing you ample room to customize your brightness as you see fit. Most iPod's are supported (excluding the iPhone) and I had no trouble plugging my 3rd Nano into this clock and getting it to play through the clock's speakers while keeping it charged simultaneously. This device also includes an audio-out cable allowing you to plug in non-iPod mp3 playback devices, but the only downside to using non-Apple devices is that you can't use them as an 'alarm' option the way you can via an iPod. The clock also has a digital FM tuner, with a built in wire-antennae and allows up to 20 station presets so along with the standard alarm clock chime this device provides plenty of audio wake-up alarm options.

As mentioned earlier, this is a very stylish product. Its a bit lighter and smaller then I initially expected but this is not necessarily a bad thing. The device looks right at home whether set up on your desk or your nightstand and looks equally handsome with or without your iPod plugged into it.

There are 2 minor complaints that I have with this product preventing it from earning a higher review score. First the device has a bit of a learning curve to it. Setting the time as well as an alarm will require you to consult the instructions at least the first several times. This clock has 4 arrays of functional buttons (the top, the sides and the back) and the layout of these buttons are not very intuitive and will require a good deal of guesswork if you're the type that can't be bothered to consult instructional documentation (me!) when setting up your morning wake-up. But once you get over this learning curve you'll discover that this little clock packs a great deal of functionality over other alarm clocks you get 2 alarm settings for weekdays/weekends, there's a plethora of audio alarm options and the default audio alarm tone is actually pleasant and I really appreciated the option for a gradual audio volume option (the alarm starts off soft and works its way up to loud).

My other complaint was a mild disappointment with the overall audio quality of this device. Granted, audio still sounds better then 95% of most 'budget' alarm clocks but the lack of bass and an overall sense of rich audio was disappointing and not befitting of a product that otherwise looks so fantastic with a decent feature set to boot. Still, this is one of the better sub $50 iPod compatible clocks out there and I highly recommend if you can overcome a tiny learning curve and live with the slightly 'tinny' audio quality.