RCR-5 Digital AM/FM Clock Radio, White

I own both this model and the Sangean K-200 (and this review is cross-posted). The K-200 has superior sound quality and a smaller footprint on a bedside table, but this model is better in nearly every other way that's important to me; it's so much better that the K-200 got demoted to our office/sewing room and I now use this one as my daily alarm clock and go-to radio. Here's my take on why the RCR-5 is much easier to use... (1) Physical raised buttons for on & off and preset-changes. The RCR-5's buttons are easy to feel in the dark and work great. The K-200 has those flush under-the-skin membrane buttons and they do NOT work well; to the point that I have to press the on & off button several times to get it to work. So frustrating, especially when trying to turn off an alarm quickly -- I just gave up on snoozing it entirely. (2) Amber backlit display. This is SO critical for a good night's sleep if this alarm clock is going in your bedroom. Blue light triggers the "awake time" chemicals in our brains and amber light triggers the "sleepytime" ones; I found the K-200's blue glow to be difficult to fall asleep next to. I have a much easier time falling asleep with the RCR-5's amber light by my bed instead. (3) Weekday alarm. Both Sangean models offer this awesome feature (set an alarm to ring at the same time only on weekdays), but the RCR-5 is much easier to set. The K-200 makes you use the tuning dial to set the alarms (turn, then push to set), and it's hard to advance to the next thing without throwing your current setting off with an accidental twist of the dial as you push. (4) Fade-in alarm. Love this feature, both for the easy wake-up for myself and because it makes it easier for me to snooze or turn off the alarm before waking my husband earlier than necessary. RCR-5 has it, K-200 does not. (5) Volume set for alarms. One of the things you can set per alarm on the RCR-5 is the volume it will turn on to -- this is FABULOUS!! With the K-200, you have to physically turn the volume knob to the level you want the radio to turn on to in the morning; this is a pain if you also listen to the radio at a louder volume during the day. Or if you have a toddler...see below... (6) Volume control is a wheel on the side of the RCR-5, not a big glowy dial on the front (as it is on the K-200). This is particularly important if you have a toddler in the house! With the K-200, my daughter would wander by and randomly crank the volume all the way up while the unit was off, just to play with the big fun dial...so the next time I turned it on, BLASTING SOUND! Ouch. I finally learned to turn down the volume before turning the K-200 on, but it was a hard-won lesson. The much more subtlety-placed wheel on the RCR-5 doesn't look like a shiny toy, so she hasn't messed with it yet. Hooray. All in all, the RCR-5 has the best functions & features of any clock radio I've ever had. I wish it had the nicer sound of the K-200, but the RCR-5 just works better for me in every other way.

It appears Sangean has taken over where Sony left off. Sony used to make great clock radios, but their current line-up has only (yes, I know there are a few exceptions) cheap looking, analog - non digital tuning radios. For about $45, this is a good clock radio with a few shortcomings and some nice features. I selected an AM/FM radio for reliability. We don't listen to the radio in the bedroom, so the primary purpose was to wake us up at a specific time. PROS: Clock and Alarms easily set - time can be adjusted up AND down from the 'snooze' bar. Two configurable Alarms - with radio OR 'buzzer' but NOT both at the same time Digital tuning with Presets for both AM and FM. Both AM and FM seem to have good sensitivity. Small footprint - fits your night table without overtaking all the space. White case blends nicely into our bedroom, which has white furniture. Cons: Tinny radio sound. I've seen some reviews that say the sound is GREAT - they must be tone deaf. Sorry, this sounds like a cheap table radio - hmmm, well it is only $45. If you want great sound buy a Bose. Digital readout has 'dated' look and the dimmer is adjustable, you have to turn the radio over to get to it. It does not automatically adjust to the room's ambient light. Manual says backup battery only lasts 10 minutes. I guess that will be fine for momentary power glitches, but anytime longer will require resetting time, alarms and radio presets. We don't get a lot of power outages, for us that might not be an issue. Alarm adjusting will require reading the manual, not very hard, but not intuitive. It will display Year, Month, Date, but it requires pushing the Clock Adjust button numerous times to see each. Overall, as noted, I gave it 4 stars. It does what it's supposed to do, and the price is pretty much on par with the features and performance. Added Jan, 2013 - I've had a few months to use this radio and need to add a few comments: *Turning OFF the alarm makes a LOUD ANNOYING BEEP - I seem to be able to be up before my alarm goes off, but turning off the alarm emits a very loud BEEP which disturbs my wife - she likes sleeping a bit later than 5:30am. Also, touching any button puts the LED at full brilliance, lighting up the dark room. A ambient light sensor for the LED would have been better. *The LED is an OLD, cheap type that requires looking DOWN, rather than UP to see the numbers clearly. So if your night table is higher than your radio, you won't be able to see the numbers very well - If it's lower than your bed NO Problem. Seems upside down, as I believe most night tables are LOWER than the bed. * Human Sleep Alarm, starts low, gradually increases, only works on the BEEP Alarm NOT the Radio. You will get blasted by the radio whether you like it or not, or take the chance, if set too low, to sleep through the alarm. * Just about all the buttons are similar in size, so it's hard to differentiate between them in the dark. It would be nice if the ALARM OFF button was bigger and placed closer to the front where you could reach it easier. * If I could I would re-rate this at 3 Stars.

This is the clock radio I've been waiting for. Pros: -Headphone jack. This is huge for me. I've been looking for this on a clock radio for many, many years. Prior to this clock radio, I had a 1980's boom box propped up next to the bed with an earphone bud so I could listen to the radio as I fell asleep without disturbing my wife. I had tried small portable radios, but they all used batteries only and were too easy to fling around while I was sleeping. This radio is stable enough that I haven't yanked it off the nightstand. -Digital tuning with presets. Another problem with the 1980's boom box was the manual tuner knob. Too much fiddling with it in the middle of the night and often unsure if I had landed on the right station. My previous clock radio did have presets and digital tuning but no headphone jack, so worthless. On this radio, I usually switch between one AM and one FM station overnight, so switching back and forth only means pressing the "band" button at the front right, which is easy to find at night. If I had to find the presets in the middle of the night, that might be trickier as they're in the middle of all the buttons, but I figure I could always apply some kind of raised stickers (like Braille) on those buttons to be able to find them. Also, concerning buttons, I have not had a problem accidentally hitting the nap button as some have mentioned. When I turn on the radio or turn off the alarm, it's been easy enough for me to locate that one in the dark as it's lighted red and is on the edge of all the buttons (back and on the right). -Variable display dimmer. My previous clock radio only had a high and low setting. High was a headlight, low was too dim. Problem solved. -Humane waking system. Love this. We gave away another clock radio that had only one setting - induce heart attack. I usually turn off the Sangean alarm at the very beginning when it's still very quiet, but I have been very tired some mornings and needed the extra graduated volume. I let it go to the loudest volume once and I found it to be loud enough for me. -Cost and size. Not too expensive I thought, and doesn't take up too much room on the nightstand. -Seconds display. When I look at the clock and it reads 5:59 am, I like to know if I have almost one minute to close my eyes or one second. My only complaint here is that when the radio is on (as mine is all night), "ON" is displayed instead of the seconds. A few minor complaints: -Yes, setting the alarm is tricky at first, but in a day I was used to it. To set the alarm time, press the "1" or "2" alarm button on the back briefly (at first, I kept making the mistake of holding it down for a few seconds, which turns the alarm on or off). This will display the current time set for the alarm. Once the alarm time is displayed (and it goes away in a few seconds if you don't do anything else), then press and hold the "set/display" button until the hours start flashing. Then use the tuning +/- buttons to change hours, hit "set/display" again, then the same +/- for minutes, days of the week, type of alarm. Then to turn on or off the alarms, you press and hold the "1" or 2" buttons. -Very loud beep when the alarm is turned on or off. OK, this is annoying if my wife has already fallen asleep and I forget to set the alarm. Same thing if I wake up before the alarm and want to turn it off before it goes off. This should be fixed. Either no beep or a very quiet one would be better. -The display changes to VERY bright whenever you do just about anything to the clock radio in the middle of the night (change the band, change the preset, turn the radio on or off). Again, this seems like it could and should be corrected. -Radio reception. Not a problem for me as the stations I listen to come in just fine, but one station I used to occasionally listen to (and used to be able to pick up) doesn't come in. I imagine it could be a problem for some. Despite the minor complaints, I'm still giving this clock/radio 5 stars.

I agree with the other reviewers who rate this highly: excellent sound quality and reception. I did have to try different antenna placement for optimal reception as it is near a lamp with a CFL that interferes; but once I found the right place for the antenna (which is a very thin white wire that I don't find bothersome being visible), the reception was much better than any other radio (even less CFL interference than my Bose!) I saw few other comments about the compact size: it's quite small and that's nice in a bedside radio. I could wish the power button was a slightly different size so easier to find when sleepy... but that's easy to learn. Another nice feature is this can be adjusted to a *very* soft volume (and still be heard clearly due to fidelity): nice to be able to use as alarm or late listening without disturbing others. This is the first clock radio I've had with preset buttons: this is a nice feature: very easy to sleepily change stations if the pre-set one is not what you want to wake to... or need some "white noise" to cancel out sleep-disrupting noise. I'm not as fond of having the time (numbers) backlit instead of the numbers being the lit area: so much more area that glows... and I'd prefer a softer color than the orange, but being able to change the intensity level allows it to be not too intrusive to sleeping. The numbers are also really big (helpful for the vision-impaired, like me who take off glasses and have to squint in bed). Somehow, the photo doesn't do the actual small size but readable numbers, and the overall appearance justice (the white plastic is quite glossy, which you can't tell in the photo, so it looks "higher end" and "techier" than I expected): it just looks and "works" much better than I had visualized even seeing the photo, once on the bedside table. Altogether an excellent bedside clock radio. UPDATE: after a month or so, I have to say the brightness of the orange backlit panel has become a problem: it actually seems to wake me up if I roll over and face right into it. I keep ending up putting a paperback book in front of it to block the light, so I no longer can just look over to see the time. I really wish this had just lighted numbers not a big bright panel of orange light: really bad design flaw. Nonetheless, the rest of the radio functions remain excellent. UPDATE #2: now after living with this for several months, I do have two large complaints: the light has become bothersome enough that I've ended up blocking it out with a paperback, which means to read the time I really have to wake up enough to navigate rearranging the bedside table: not what you want from a bedside clock! And several times I've inadvertently hit the "band" button which is stupidly placed right in front of the off/on button and the same size: clock radios should be designed for use when semi-conscious... Two rather serious design flaws have made me reduce my rating. Still: lovely fidelity as seems a hallmark of this brand.

This is the best alarm clock I have ever owned. It has all the features I absolutely needed in an alarm clock -- and it offers others that I always fantasized about but assumed would never exist in an alarm clock. This is truly my dream alarm clock come true, and I can't emphasize that enough. It's as if someone who lived my life designed this. I am in my 40s and have used plug-in alarm clocks all my life. I still prefer them over digital devices. I'll just talk about the features that I love most: 1. It has an AM tuner, which strangely many alarm clocks today do not offer -- they only do FM, if anything at all. I need AM in order to wake up to my local 24-hr AM news radio. Music, buzzes, anything else just doesn't work for me. 2. It has a countdown sleep timer that allows me to fall asleep to the radio white noise of my choice, in increments of 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes. Falling asleep to the radio has been a part of my nightly routine for decades. What is new to me in this clock, and what I absolutely love, is the preset increments. In my old (now dead) alarm clock I still had to manually set a time, from 0 to 60 minutes, and sometimes I'd cycle through the minutes several times because the numbers zip by so quickly, and the buttons only go in one direction. I know that's so anal but these preset times make it so simple: just one or two touches, and you're set! Also if you're extremely near-sighted like I am, when the glasses are off and you lean over to set the timer, you don't have to stare closely at the display to make sure you stopped at the right number -- you don't even have to look at all, because all the buttons are positioned distinctly enough, there is no confusion about hitting the right one. 3. That brings me to the buttons. They are all so well positioned and designed. Again, if you're really near-sighted like me and in bed without glasses, you don't think about how useful a thoughtful button design can be until you realize you can figure out everything by touch after a few repeated uses. 4. There is one alarm setting for weekdays, and an optional second alarm setting for one-time-only days. THIS is an amazing feature. I know that you can do this on your smartphone already, but I don't use smartphones for alarms, and no plug-in alarm clock of mine had ever had this. I never knew life could be this much easier. Seriously. I used to have to remind myself to turn off my alarm switch on the side of the clock on Friday nights so it wouldn't wake me up super early Saturday morning. And then I'd carry the burden of remembering to turn it back on Sunday nights so I wouldn't sleep in and miss work. This was stressful but eventually became a habit, but when I bought this alarm clock and found this feature, I nearly died and went to heaven. 5. When you set your alarms and your sleep timers, you can customize each of them not only for a specific radio station, you can choose the volume! This is mindblowing to me. Okay maybe I'm just old and out of touch. But I always hated that the volume was a manual knob that was stuck there when you went to sleep. So if I turned the volume down lower at night to fall asleep to, the alarm in the morning would be a bit too quiet. So I would be forced to choose my waking volume to fall asleep to, which was too loud, but better than nothing. Now I don't have to choose. Who knew this kind of attention to detail could be so wonderful and amazing. Every night and every morning I silently thank the designers of this alarm clock. Last amazing detail on this: it also has a fade-in volume for the alarm!! So when the radio comes on, it begins quietly, then ramps up to your chosen alarm volume. Just incredible. I can't think of anything else right now, but it's partly because I've been using this alarm clock for many months now and while it is still stupendous and I love it to death, it is now the new normal, so it's harder to remember all the amazing characteristics I was excited about during the first few months that I'm completely used to now. But I love this alarm clock SO MUCH and think back over the years to how much nicer my nights and mornings could have been with it. I have it now, though, and I can't be more thrilled and pleased.

After about one month, the power pack on the electrical cord started to buzz and hum. Since it was still under warranty, I sent the bad power pack and $8 to Sangean for replacement. It took a couple of months to receive the replacement. The new power pack was DOA; probably from being damaged in the mail due to Sangean mailing it in a flimsy paper envelope. So, I contacted Sangean and they wanted another $8 for another cord replacement. In my mind, I thought it would be better to return the whole unit to Amazon, get a full refund and then re order the unit again from Amazon. The reason for wanting to reorder the same unit was because despite some major engineering flaws in this radio, this little radio has the best radio reception I have ever come across! I could pull in far away stations really well, and the sound was great! My plan didn't work very well on the return to Amazon. The first roadblock was that it was past the time that Amazon would accept a return on the item. But, when I told Amazon the story of the 3 month warranty return etc, Amazon let me return the unit for credit. Next problem here was that Amazon charged an $8 restocking fee!!!!! I am really not happy with this. Also, if this unit was restocked, the future buyer of this is in for a surprise, because the power unit is dead! If you are planning on buying this little clock radio here are some more negatives to think on. There are a lot of buttons on the top of the radio, but only the power on button is lit. This makes it hard to figure out what button to push at night. Also, the backlit display has a dimmer and brightener knob, but it is on the underside of the unit and is hard to adjust. Plus, holding the unit up to dim or brighten the display invariably you will hit one of the top buttons. Here are the positive things about this unit: 1. Great radio reception. 2. Easy to understand set up. 3. good instruction manual. 3. Has all the sleep, and timer functions you would want on a radio....Had high hopes for this unit, but manufacturer really messed up on the warranty repair!!! Also really unhappy with Amazon's restocking fee.

I really like this petite-sized alarm radio clock. The radio quality is excellent providing good sound and reception quality. The LED light can be dimmed to almost non-visible so it doesn't interrupt your sleep. The radio alarm has humane feature so it will gradually increase your radio station volume at the time you set. It's very lightweight and takes little footprint on your nightstand. And it looks very sleek and modern. Of course if you prefer old-fashioned style then go with the wood material. Sangean is basically the Apple brand in the radio industry. So if you want quality and excellent user experience, then go with this brand. Lastly, I had some questions about their products, so I called their office in California. But the technician Jimmy was very rude and seemed to be irritated. Since I didn't get the help I needed, I called their headquarter office instead in Taiwan, and the staff there were very polite and patient. They helped to answer all of my questions and gave me insightful tips. So thanks to those staff in the Taiwan office.

My first review was very good however after 2 months short of one year's usage, the side volumn control stinks. It almost always slips without changing the sound and feels like it will fail shortly. I have found to just leave it at one position although the sound varies greatly from FM to AM. Beware of this problem; if you do purchase this radio, keep the original box for any returns if this feature also fails for you. Also, the Nap button is next to the number 5 station preset. Several times, reaching over in the dark at bedtime, I have pushed the NAP button by mistake when changing stations. This activated the Awake alarm and started beeping after a few minutes which required pushing the Off button to stop the beep which interrupts the sleep pattern for sure. Other than that this is a good radio if you are looking for digital station presets at this price. This is a great value considering that this radio gives you digital tuning and 10 presets; five FM and five AM stations. I was shopping for those features all over the internet and radio presets cost double what Amazon has here. The FM reception is very good but I found problems with the AM reception. Most of the AM stations have static which prohibits clear listening. I called customer service and was forwarded to their tech department. I was told to unplug the radio for five hours and let it re-boot since I had it programmed after its factory defaults. That did improve the AM reception somewhat but the clarity still was poor. The FM uses an attached wire antenna but the antenna for the AM is built in the radio. Turning it and moving it to different positions and locations did help but I want the radio to be where I wanted it. I would have given this radio five stars except for the AM problem.

As per many of the other reviews, this radio, purchased 3 months ago, is great. Best features: It has an external lengthy antennae, which can be moved freely and pick up stations from a far away distance. Very important for distant rural consumers. It has an earphone jack, allowing me to listen to the radio & allow others (especially wife) to sleep. It has (and so should all radios) have digital tuning, not dial analog, and thus making it VERY easy to tune exactly (and quickly) tune to your desired station. And finally I'm quite amazed the the sound quality. Very clear with a good balance of bass and treble (but not too much of either). I can't speak for the alarm system as I always wake up on my own at 6AM, and therefore never set the alarm. I was concerned that it is more expensive than average, but I'll be happy for years. So, go to bed, set the time for 60 minutes, listen to CBC (As it happens - midnight edition), and likely fall asleep, radio turns off. Wake in the morning, catch the news & weather for 20 minutes, and then start my day. A clock-radio? Yes, always one of my better investments in the house.

This is the second one of these I purchased. I love the fact that it has an earphone jack so you can listen to it in bed without disturbing your partner. Very easy to use and set channels and alarms, etc., I like the fact that the display can be bright or dim. I bought this for my husband.

Excellent clock radio about 2" high and 7" wide. The radio speaker is good sounding Mono. The Orange glowing LCD clock is nice change from typical red or blue leds. And its fully adjustable brightness, that adds an orange glow at night. Pros: Perfect size: 7"W, 2"H, 6"D. (1 LB) Good weight with rubber feet, stays put. Variable brightness, from None to very bright. (1"x4") I found the programming intuitive, but some will need the manual. Digital Radio reception is good. "Smart Wake" is Excellent !! Starts out very softly. Cons: "Snooze" is non-adjustable 5 min each push. Display contrast could be better or adjustable. And day of week is tiny. Date needs you to push "display" button to cycle. No USB charge port Battery backup in only 10 min (just for moving to new wall plug) Very solid build. Overall its a 4/5 for features. Perfect for the price and function. Excellent Alarm !!

Realmente estoy sorprendido por la calidad que tiene este radio. Muy buenos materiales, fácil de programar, y el sonido es bastante bueno. El producto llegó mucho antes de la fecha esperada.