Your worst enemy in the morning (Philips Dual Alarm AJ3225)

Member Name: somebodyrandom

Product:	Philips Dual Alarm AJ3225
Date:	05/07/04 (155 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: wakes you up, can set alarm for weekdays only

Disadvantages: wakes you up

What is your worst enemy in the morning?

Possible answers include:

1. Your bladder, after you realise it decided to empty itself in the middle of the night, in your bed, without your consent.

2. Your history teacher, after he realises not even the mentally ill pupil who suffers from long term memory loss could forget to...emm...oh well, I've forgotten what I was saying.

3. The handcuff that seems to be holding your left ankle to the bed frame, which somehow just appeared. The excess of alcohol consumed the night before could have played a part.

4. The Philips Dual Alarm alarm clock that you bought the previous day, to replace the previous alarm clock that you accidentally smashed with a hammer the night before when it attempted o wake you up at half seven on a Sunday morning.

The first three answers are understandable (well, for me, anyhow). The fourth answer however, is a bit puzzling for many. I will start the story from the start...

It was a Saturday morning, and I was dreaming about having a long appointment with my bed until the afternoon, after a long hard week at work. I was in the middle of this appointment when I suddenly heard 'BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.' I awoke, quicker than a bloke from a piranha-infested swimming pool, after having his genitals covered in fish food. Yes, it was half past six in the morning, and yes I had a hangover. So onto the floor it went. (No, not the girlfriend, the alarm clock). I had forgotten to turn the alarm off. After my rude awakening, I could not get back to sleep, disgruntled I reluctantly got out of bed.

And stepped on the sodden alarm clock.

And broke it.

Looks like the task for the day was set, buy a new alarm clock.

A
fter a freshen up, in the form of a shower and soap in the eyes (painful, but it gets your heart beat racing), I got watered (i.e. had breakfast) and went out to a high street catalogue shop, that starts with Ar and ends in gos (see, no advertising in my reviews :-)).

A quick flick through the catalogue, that was sticky from the grubby little hands of the little boy who preceded my viewing of it, and my attention was drawn to the Sony ICF C253 alarm clock.

Why? Because it was the cheapest looking, modern alarm clock they had, priced at thirty quid. A few minutes later, I had it, in a surprisingly small box (as they say, the best things come in small packages!).

Once I returned home (via the pub and curry house) I opened the alarm clock and attempted to set it up. And I did set it up.

The instruction booklet was a paper booklet, about 12 pages thick (or thin depending upon what type of person you are). It was clearly set out, with step-by-step instructions on how to set the time, date, alarm time and tune in and store the radio stations. This took me about 15 minutes max to do, not long considering it kept talking to me (or was that the alcohol talking?).

The alarm clock itself is about 19cm wide by about 15cm deep (I measured it myself). It is available in two different styles, one has a mainly silver body and orange display, and the other has a mainly back body with green display. I think it is potluck to which one you get; they are exactly the same price.

The display is large and clear, whilst not being so bright that it prevents you form getting to sleep. It has simple operational buttons on it and is simply labelled (e.g. 'on' 'off' etc)> It also has a summertime button, but I don?t think mine works. Every time I press it, the time just goes forward an hour, the weather sti
ll stays as crap as it always is and has been. When I press it again, the time then goes back an hour, with the weather not changing.

You can store up to five radio stations in it, and they can be am, fm, or LW. The tuner is digital, so it displays what frequency you are on, instead of having to turn a knob (some people might like turning knobs, but that?s another review).

The radio reception is fine (it will depend upon what the signal strength in your area is like of course). The sound quality is good; it is Walkers windows (crisp and clear).

It has a sleep and snooze function, so you can fall asleep to the radio. It will automatically turn off after 10, 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. This is especially useful if you want an extra few minutes in bed. The sleep function will turn the alarm back on after eight minutes each time you press the sleep button.

You can set two alarms on this alarm clock. You can even choose which days they come on. I only use one of my alarms, and it is set to only wake me up during the weekdays. This has two benefits, for a start you don't get woken up at the weekend and secondly you don't need to remember to turn the alarm on and off at the beginning and end of the week. You can choose to either wake up to the radio or a buzzer. (I strongly recommend the radio, as the latter is so loud it could cause you to empty the contents of your bowel in your bed. Talk about skid marks...).

That?s about all that I can say about this alarm clock, apart from it runs off the mains and has an internal battery, so that even if there is a power cut or it is unplugged it will retain the time and the settings for a good twenty minutes. (Totally useless of course if the power cut lasts much longer than this!).

This is a very good alarm clock for the price; you can guarantee it will wake you up. And 
3; will shut up talking know so that you can rate this review and get on with your life :-)

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