Philips AJ3231 Mirror Finish Clock Radio

I have been looking for "the perfect" clock radio for quite a while and I think I found it! A marvel of engineering and design -- it's light, airy, amazing looking yet sturdy and substantial at the same time. This is so well designed! I find that the buttons are in the right places, easy to get to and intuitive, they feel very substantial and not flimsy and cheap like so many other electronics today. I don't know how they were able to make a piece that is so substantial and solid feeling yet airy and light and unobtrusive looking. A really great job done though! I am quite impressed and very pleasantly surprised, this feels like a product that will last, which sometimes seems like a thing of teh past- toay everything is made to toss... I love the non digital radio station dial-- I live in a mountainous area where it's very hard to get any reception, and the manual tuner is a must. And this one is well made and sensitive -- I actually get several stations with this, which I have never been able to get with others I have tried. On top of it the light display is brilliantly done! The mirror finish is really cool it's a smoky color so not like a shiny standard mirror. And the time is displayed in a golden color that makes it really easy at a quick glance see what time it is whether it's light or dark in the room, yet at night it's very unobtrusive. Living in the mountains we have no ambient light (except the moon when it's full) coming into the bedroom. So, any light source really pops out and I have a hard time sleeping with that in the room. So I have been looking for one that didn't keep me awake. I have tried several ones with adjustable displays but ended up having to toss a piece of clothing over each one I have tried, which makes it a useless time keeper. This one was just perfect. I really, really like this clock radio and can highly recommend it.

I purchased this clock through Amazon and, so far, it has functioned well. I like the appearance of it, the alarm functions very well, I like the fact that I don't have to programm it everyday and also that I can programm two alarms at the same time. I programmed them to wake me up with the radio, so it's good to listen to music in the morning. You can connect your MP3 or IPhone which is very convennient if you want to listen to your music next to your bed at night. I also like that you can make the time in the screen look brighter or not. The only thing that I don't like so much is the reception of the radio, you can listen to it well but it doesn't receive many radio stations. That is not a big deal, I would buy it again in spite of that because it is a very good product, good quality, good appearance, good functioning. I am very happy with it.

This functions perfectly as I hoped. The thing takes forever to learn ho to program and the manual is awful vague. I program gadgets ay work ad am pretty good at it. It probably took me over 30 minutes just to learn how to program it! There is a not so intuitive time when the key they point to the picture needs to be held at least 2 seconds and nothing is said about that! Once I figured it out, it was easy to program. The nice thing about that is the two AAA's you put in keeps the programming in memory so you don't have to re-program after a power outage. What I LOVE about it is the sound quality. The quarts lock digital tuner puts each station tuned perfectly and the best quality possible comes out of the decent sounding speaker. Sure beats twisting a dial and trying tell by ear exactly where it goes. It 100% meets my needs and the price is terrific. I

Display is great. I enjoy the green LED much more than red. Numbers are large and clear. Indicator lights for alarm options are easy to decipher. Radio is digital, no rolling a dial and hoping that you can land on a station. Now the bad. The volume. The default volume setting is #8. That means, when you first turn on the radio, it turns on at a volume setting of #8. You can adjust after that, but that is after you have endured the initial loud blare. Additionally, and here is the real kick in the pants, the same goes for using the radio as your alarm selection. Volume comes on at #8. (Just an FYI, volume setting #8 is pretty loud.) So when the alarm goes off at 5:15AM after you have been sleeping for hours, that #8 volume is quite a jolt. It can actually be quite unnerving.

Purchased this inexpensive clock radio to take the place temporarily of our fine Bose AM/FM clock "Wave" radio, just for about 5 weeks, while that wonderful 2007 unit is being repaired.) Assumed it would work OK, pull in our usual strong FM stations, and function OK as a clock & alarm. The clock part is fine, a digital readout similar to that on numerous devices. But the controls on this unnecessarily tiny unit are hard to learn to use & not user-friendly even after you master them: The controls, all on top of the unit, where, of course, one can't readily see them from the front, are mostly dual-purpose: The volume, for example, doubles as, say, the manual tuning, etc. The buttons are small, and impossible to distinguish by touch (all are the same size, too.) But the real bottom line is the poor FM reception. We have a cheap, Panasonic clock radio that's probably 40 years old, which has no separate antenna, just uses the AC cord for that, and it pulls in many stations very well. (The only reason we're not using that as the stand-in for our Bose is that the Panasonic has mechanical digital clock -- I said it was old! -- and there used to be a little light that illuminated it at night, & that light has died.) We knew a radio at this price wouldn't be state-of-the art, but this one is unacceptably poor. Betting that some of the other clock radios in similar price range on Amazon are probably pretty good for the price, so strongly suggest you try a different one (it couldn't be worse than this one!)

I paid $10 for this on Amazon Prime. Worth every penny, but probably not much more. As others have mentioned, I had to actually read the instructions to set the time, radio stations, etc. Boo, hoo. No big deal. It took all of 5 minutes. This clock has a battery backup (in the event of a power loss) that will still maintain the correct time, keep all your settings, and trigger the alarm at its set time. To me, this is an important feature. (I have a $100 Sony HD radio that loses every setting whenever we lose power, which in Wisconsin, can happen often.) It has settings for two different alarm times which is nice but not unusual. The non-radio alarm is not crazy-loud (as some are) but it's enough to wake you without wanting to hit the damn thing with a hammer. The radio comes on full loud, but as I don't use it, I don't have an issue. (Do you really want to wake up to a deodorant commercial?). The radio uses a hanging string-type antenna that works okay (I'm about 20-miles outside of Milwaukee) and even brings in the one college radio station that exists here, and without static. (If you want the antenna to work, though, it must be fully extended.) No bass to speak of, but the sound is crisp and clear. Works for me as I didn't buy it for "fidelity", just for the news. The one issue I have is that it has 10 FM pre-sets, but you have to cycle through them all to change stations. For instance, if you are on pre-set 2 and want to go to pre-set 1, you have to move up through ALL the pre-sets (even if you have set none) until you come back to number 1. A "back" button for the pre-sets would have gone a long way for me. Nevertheless, I think for ten-bucks this is a great bargain. For a bit higher price, it's still worth having (unless blinking colons bother you (see top-rated review). Not disturbingly bright, works reliably, has battery backup and decent radio reception and sound.

I should start by saying I have always owned Philips products because of their intelligent designs. I find them to be good looking with easy to understand controls and settings. That is until I got this clock. I purchased this clock to replace a Philips alarm clock that was a little over ten years old. That clock was working fine until I had some friend over with a small child who decided to pour a full glass of water on the clock. You can imagine what took place next. The thing I loved about the old Philips clock was it's dual alarm feature. My partner is up at 5 AM while I get up an hour later. We have it set to radio mode on NPR. The radio would be on for a full two hours in the morning. All sounds great! That whoever is not the case with this new Philips alarm clock. Let me back up a bit and say there are things I like about this clock. For one, it looks good. Second it was super simple to setup. The controls are very minimal at best. So here's the problems: 1. There is no off button on the clocks radio. All of the buttons on the clock have dual functionality. That said, there is a button on top of the clock that is marked below the radio with the universal on/off graphic symbol. (An open circle with a line drawn through it.) If you press this button the radio turns on. Press it again and the radio switches from FM to AM. Easy enough right!. press it a third time and the radio turns off right! WRONG! It's back on FM. I can find no way to turn off the radio. There is no radio off button. 2. This one I found out this morning. The alarm goes off at 5 AM. Nothing wrong there. It then shuts itself off at 5:30. What?! It was on for only a half an hour. That won't work. What if I oversleep? There is no way to extend the time the radio in the alarm settings. Oh, wait I can just turn on the radio...But then I can't turn it off when its on. That's no good. Sorry Philips but this is a BAD design flaw!! It's an alarm clock! How can you screw that up? Somehow you did.

In my opinion, there are a few things which would have made this better, such as: a quick return to midnight for alarm setting, being able to set the volume on the alarm instead of it being progressive, and having the volume of the radio where I last put it instead of at a starting default level. However, it is overall a nice alarm clock at a great price. The dim level is not too bright or too dim, the green light is easy on the eyes in the dark, there are two easy-to-set alarms for radio or beeps (and they are still pretty quick even though you can’t just flip back to midnight for a starting point), radio reception is good, and it’s pretty small. The only actual flaw I’ve noticed is that the snooze time is inconsistent... I’ve had it be anywhere from 9 to 2 minutes. But with 2 alarms, the snooze can be easily avoided if desired. Overall, I’m happy with my choice.

I have no issue with the brightness. I feel it's just right. Very nice looking. Just as it is pictured. To be honest I found it a bit confusing out of the box, but a quick referral to the instructions made everything make sense and I felt a little silly that I didn't catch on right away. Overall I feel that it is priced accordingly, and it is a nice clock.

Doesn’t work on Australian plug

Gosto muito de rádios relógios e este me surpreendeu. Painel grande e com luz verde (não gosto de vermelho ou laranja como é mais comum), botões com boa sensibilidade, uso de pilhas ao invés de bateria, qualidade Philips. Achei um pouco complicado programar e ativar os despertadores, mas depois de praticar entendi o funcionamento.

This product was great as soon as I plugged it in. Easy to program and I also like the green LED numbers instead of red. Not good for radio reception though. It's set for my local station. that's all it gets.

I have been using this clock since last 3 months. It's excellent and a perfect bedside table clock and radio. Radio volume is decent. Setting alarm is easy. The only negative I can think of is that it doesn't work on battery during power cut. The battery only retains the time so that you don't have to change time when the power is backup.