Philips AJ3940 CD Dual Alarm Clock Radio
by Philips
(Click here)
Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: PhilipsModel: AJ3940
Product features:
- Dual-alarm CD clock radio with weekend/weekday alarm times
- Wake to CD, AM/FM radio, or beeper
- Dynamic Bass Boost (DBB)
- 3-step brightness control with green LEDs
- Power-failure backup (3 AAA batteries not included)
- Energizer L91BP-8 Lithium AA Photo Battery (8-Pack)
- Sanyo Eneloop AA NiMH Pre-Charged Rechargable Batteries with Charger - 4 Pack
- Sanyo Eneloop AA NiMH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries - 8 Pack
- Energizer E91BP-4 AA Batteries (4-Pack)
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Philips AJ3940 CD Dual Alarm Clock Radio
Customer Review: LED. Please. Just use an LED.
Summary: 3 Stars
Seems like most clock radios over $50 use LCD numeric displays. Somewhere, at some company, there's a person who thinks this is a good idea. We should all team up and shine flashlights in this person's face at 2:00 AM.Once and for all: LCD's do not work on clock radios. For one thing, the viewing angle is too limited. I actually had to get a lower nightstand, 'cause my old one placed the clock to high, and the LCD faded out of view from pillow-level.
And much worse: unless the LCD is backlit, the contrast is much too low to be viewed. Do you wear glasses/contacts, but not to bed? Then keep looking, because this unit is NOT for you.
Philips solution (and Timex's, and every other LCD-clock maker's...): backlight the LCD. Well, to make it readable, the display has to be made extremely bright. We're talking shadow-puppet-bright, here.
It seems so simple. The user-testing of these clocks is either being skipped or ignored, or does not mimic how these products are actually used. Sure: if you're in a brightly lit room or store, the LCD is quite viewable; perhaps more so than an LED. But these clocks are mostly viewed AT NIGHT, during and around the time when people are trying to sleep.
The Bose Wave Radios at least gets it right with green LED's, but at that price point they should have all of this unit's features. And that's the frustration: this unit has all of the OTHER features of a high-end clock radio. Weekend alarms is probably my favorite...
Plus, the button layout/usability of this unit was laid out with some common sense: hold "Time", then click the buttons to change it. Unlike the Bose, where some random, early morning, fat-fingered fumbling can easilly change the clock's time while hunting for the Snooze bar.
Other good things: the sound quality is pretty good (it's no Bose, but then again it's not as bad as the $300 price difference would imply). The radio has great reception, the CD player has a core collection of features, including the ability to wake you to any track on a CD (this was a nice little surprise...).
So, my solution (embarassed to say...): this unit, with the LCD turned all the way down to minimum brightness, and cheap LED, big-numbered clock next to it.
Is this really such a difficult product to design? I admit: I would've bought the Bose, if it had weekend alarms and a user interface that wasn't moronic. But this is a close second, and the price is right. We'll see how the hardware & plastics hold up over the next few weeks...
Description of Philips AJ3940 CD Dual Alarm Clock Radio
Tired of being jolted out of bed early on Saturday because you forgot to turn off your alarm clock? The Philips AJ3940 CD dual-alarm clock radio comes with a WeekendSleeper function that automatically turns off the alarm on weekends.Wake to CD, AM/FM radio, or beeper, and never worry about the alarm resetting thanks to the included power-failure backup.
Other features include a three-step brightness control for the LED, forward/reverse and repeat for CDs, plus a feature that lets you program which CD track you'd like to wake up to. Sound quality is complemented by Dynamic Bass Boost.