CD Clock Radio with Dual Alarm and Digital Am/fm Tun

• Philips AJ3977/37 CD Clock Radio with dual alarm and digital AM/FM tuning w/preset stations

This clock is nice looking, it has two independent alarms, CD and radio playing capability, sleep mode, and a 5 minute snooze. Either the CD or radio or high-pitched beep (simple beeps, not that screeching buzzer that still makes the hair on my neck stand on end) can be used with either alarm.

That much is great, and if you are looking for those features, buy this clock radio.

The cons:

--Usability is poor and unintuitive. For example: when you're setting an alarm, you hit the Alarm 1 button once to bring up the blinking time setup. You also see which alarm mode is currently active. If you set the time, then notice you need to change the mode (beeps, CD, radio) and change it immediately afterward, the time goes back to how it was before.

--Button to turn alarm off (not snooze) along with other buttons used to activate alarm settings are small and impossible to use in the dark, even if you have a good idea of where they are.

--No gradual alarm volume increase. When I get blasted out of bed by a sudden horrific onslaught of noise I'm much more likely to scramble for the snooze rather than actually get up. This is a feature all modern alarms should have as an option.

--CD wake mode can only play first track of CD!!! If you don't want to wake up to different tracks of your favorite CD you have to reburn the CD in a different track order.

Buy CD Clock Radio with Dual Alarm and Digital Am/fm Tun Now

I hate this product.

I recently moved and wanted some kind of small, simple CD player in my bedroom. I also wanted something relatively inexpensive. After a lot of shopping around, I settled on this CD player/clock radio. The clock radio aspect was a nice bonus, as I wanted another clock for the bedroom as well.

The unit takes up very little space on my nightstand with the vertical form factor. The unit doesn't look exactly like the product picture on Amazon, but it's similar. The controls are mostly easy to figure out, and it has a battery compartment in case the power goes out (two AA batteries). The display is readable from a distance, and overall the unit is attractive. It is also inexpensive.

Unfortunately, the goodness ends there. The negatives:

1. To play a CD, you must turn the unit on. Pressing 'play' without turning the unit on doesn't work.

2. The display is so bright I have to turn it away from my bed at night--even on the dimmest setting it is far brighter than my bright red LED clock radio.

3. The speakers are terrible. Even playing simple acoustic guitar music (Windham Hill variety) causes a lot of vibration. I am surprised by this: Yes, the unit is cheap and has small speakers, but I am still disappointed--I wouldn't expect Philips to make such a bad sounding unit. My 10 year old $20 clock radio sounds better than this. Even turning up soft piano music to a volume audible more than 4 ft from the unit results in very bad sound.

4. The unit makes a fluttering noise when the CD is rotating, with a grinding-and-hiss combination noise when it spins up the CD. In the morning, I am usually awakened by the grind, rather than my music. Sometimes it makes a lot of noise as it switches from one track to another. All of this happens with various CDs that have been treated well and handled carefully.

5. When manually starting to play a CD (such as to fall asleep to), there's a good 30-45 seconds that it's impossible to check the time of the alarms! Pressing the alarm buttons just don't do anything. This is just silly.

I have bought some pretty poor products from time to time over the years, but I do think it is fair to say that this is one of the worst uses of my money ever. I wasn't expecting a heck of a lot, but I still ended up very disappointed.

It's not clear the competing products are much better, but I would not recommend this product to anyone. :-(

Read Best Reviews of CD Clock Radio with Dual Alarm and Digital Am/fm Tun Here

cd player worked great... dual alarms and battery back-up worked great... but you can't read the stupid thing in the dark. i have perfect vision, but even when it was just a couple of feet from my face it was unreadable. the alternative is to turn on the backlight... which lights up the room like a christmas tree and makes it impossible to sleep. whoever designed it should be demoted to the janitorial staff. mine went in the garbage after less than a month because i would have felt bad dropping it off at goodwill to torture someone else.

Want CD Clock Radio with Dual Alarm and Digital Am/fm Tun Discount?

I own two Philips CD/Alarm Clocks that work great. When I needed a 3rd, the original one's I owned had been discontinued. I found this model and thought that since Philips made it and the other models I had worked great, that I would go ahead and purchase it. Bad move.

The lighting is horrible. The functionality is poor. Most important, the sound quality is beyond poor. I would compare it to what I would imagine speakers from a 62 Nova that has been sitting out in the rain for the last 40+ years would sound like. I would recommend not purchasing this item.

The blue display light is far too bright. Also, radio reception is poor and Am is constantly hissing. I highly suggest buying a different model