Sangean RCR-1
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Average user rating from 3 users |
Nice clock .horrible manual, non-intuitive controls
by Jim on Jun 15th, 2007 at 10:22 AM:
Has a lot of features I like. But controls are not standard, can't figure it without manual. Manual requires you to flip back and forth between pages to accomplish a task.
Almost the perfect clock radio....
by Scott on Nov 22nd, 2006 at 8:15 PM:
I struggled for a long time to find the perfect clock radio that had everything I wanted, and then this one came along.
Dual alarms - check!
Disable the alarm on weekends - check!
Daylight savings mode - check!
Battery backup - check!
Digital tuner - check!
Nice design - check!
When I first turned it on, I noticed that the screen could display AM/PM, yet there was no way to switch from the default 24-hour time to 12-hour time. I've since learned that only the 24-hour version is imported to Australia...which sucks, and it seems a waste to have an AM/PM indicator on the screen that you can't use. This won't be an issue for other countries that actually can get the 12-hour version.
But the real problem is the Humane Waking System (HWS), volume controls & backlight.
HWS is supposed to gently wake you by gradually increasing the volume, rather than turning on suddenly.
For starters, it not gradual enough. Yes, it does start soft and get louder; but it only takes around 2 seconds to go from one extreme (no sound) to the other (full sound). For the first 1 second, the sound is imperceptible (so its really only 1 second - after 1 second - to go from no sound to full sound). They might as well ditch HWS altogether, as it acts more like a standard 'instant on' alarm, but with a 1 second delay.
For HWS to work, the need to extend the time that it takes to get louder (ideally, make it user configurable so that I could choose, say 10 seconds, from nothing to full volume)
Regarding volume, curiously the unit has 2 volume controls: a rubber dial on one side that controls the radio volume, and small dial under the base that controls the volume of the alarm.
The important point here is that like most clock radios, you can choose to be woken by a buzzer (this has a nice buzzer, by the way) or by the radio.
The volume dial on the side only affects the radio when you manually turn on the radio, ie. not when it is activated by the alarm. You must use the dial on the bottom to set the radio volume of the alarm. I have this turned down to it's lowest possible setting, yet the radio is still too loud for my liking.
Why didn't they just use the one volume control on the side (which can be turned down to a more peaceful level) for the radio regardless of how it turns on, is beyond me.
My final gripe is with the blue backlight. A button on the front toggles the backlight between "on" and "off" (where "on" is full brightness, and "off" is your personal brightness setting). You can set how bright "off" is by using another dial under the base of the unit. I have this turned down almost as low as it will go (any further and the backlight is off altogether), but the glow is still quite bright when there are no other lights on in the room (so if you're someone who needs pitch black darkness to get to sleep, you're in trouble).
If you turn dial fully down so that the backlight is off altogether, the room glow is gone but you also can't see time anymore.
If you wake up in the middle of the night and need to know what time it is, you would need to hit the backlight toggle (ie. full brightness), which is so bright it almost blinds you.
I would have preferred to see the time itself (ie. the numbers) hightlighted rather than the background (or better yet, toggling the backlight "on" lights the background, and "off" lights the numbers).
All in all, its the best I've found; but there are enough niggling issues that my search for the ultimate clock radio is not yet over.
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Alarm Clock eventually broke
by Erik on Oct 3rd, 2008 at 12:24 PM: