Sony ICF-CD831 CD Clock Radio with FM/AM Radio and Extendable Snooze (White)

• Compact and modern clock radio with FM/AM radio and CD player
• CD player supports CD-R/RW discs
• Snoozinator gives you up to an extra 60 minutes of sleep
• .9" green LED numerals are easy to see
• Dual alarm for different wake-up times

This is the best alarm clock I've ever had, except for one thing. No battery backup. I suppose I could plug it into one of my UPSs to alleviate that problem, but I was surprised at how quickly it lost its memory after power loss. It would also be nice if it had a digital tuner, but that isn't a big deal to me since I don't use it for readio much. If I did use it for radio a lot, it would drive me nuts manually tuning to stations.

I love the snooze feature where you can keep tapping it to change when the next alarm will be. The ideal alarm clock would be similar to this one, with a battery backup, and a digital tuner. Oh yeah, it sounds pretty good too. I have it set play a nature sounds CD when I wake up. When it plays the morning birds I sometimes confuse the recording for the real birds outside my window, and vice versa. I'm not saying these are excellent speakers, but they definitely sound good for an alarm clock. Oh, and it looks pretty stylish to most of the other boxy CD alarm clocks out there.

In short, a very good alarm clock, but plug it into a UPS if you want to be sure you won't be late for work because of a power outtage in the middle of the night.

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I love this clock radio/CD player! It's a great clock radio for someone who's trying to get back to better sleeping habits. I was originally looking for a clock radio with soothing "nature sounds" built in, but this clock radio really does the job. I can play a CD with nature sounds or soothing music when I go to bed. I just set a timer, and the CD turns itself off. I can set the alarm to wake up to music, the radio, or a buzzer. By the way, the buzzer isn't an obnoxious loud buzz; it's more like a pulsing chirp. Much more pleasant to wake up to! The LCD has two brightness settings, so the light doesn't wake me up in the middle of the night. The only down side is that it takes up a little more room on the bedside table than I had planned, but that's minor compared to this clock radio's strengths.

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It's hard to find information on the power consumption of many products, even though the cost of energy can sometimes add up to be more than the purchase price. Since parts of this unit are powered up all the time, I was concerned about that before I bought it. But it is pretty good: I measure about 1.3 to 1.6 W with the display on dim; 1.7 to 2.0 W with the display bright. On dim, that's no higher than some plain alarm clocks without a radio or CD player. And it's much lower than some of the "high-end" competitors: about 6 W for the Bose Wave radio or the Cambridge Soundworks equivalents, or 3.3 W for the Panasonic RC-CD600. Still, if Sony cared to, they could cut it down to about half a watt.

On other aspects, it is very good. The display is easy to read even when dim--much better than backlit LCD displays. There's no mistaking the sound for a full size stereo, but the sound is decent and solid, and is loud enough for me to follow the news broadcast while I'm in the shower in the next room. The controls are easy to use.

One thing to look out for--the "PSYC" version looks different from the plain white one: it has silver trim and fluorescent pink lettering. This Amazon listing says PSYC but pictures the plain white one, so I don't know which you'd get if you ordered it. If you care about the looks make sure you are getting the one you prefer.

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I Had this radio for a few days, but had to return it. 1. No back-up battery and 2. the dots between the hour and minutes constantly blink, there is no way of stoping it. Sounds crazy, but it drove me nuts. Other then these two exceptions the radio play well.

This worked great up until a little less than a year after purchase, then the CD player started going haywire. It still plays CD's, yet when I set the alarm to play a song on the CD, it will spin and spin, but not play. Tried to get it replaced under warranty so I called Sony helpline and they talked me through it until it eventually worked on one song on a different CD, of course when I hung up, it stopped working again. Not worth the $50 I spent.