When the KitSound Boom Clock appeared on my Amazon Vine programme newsletter I jumped at the chance to own this, my bedside table is devoid of any sort of alarm clock instead I just depend on my mobile phone, but I do prefer waking up to the sound of the radio in the morning. The Amazon Vine programme is a select group of Amazon customers who write reviews about new or pre-release products that are given to them for free. We get a new newsletter each month and we choose which products we'd like to review, I've had everything from a £280 razor, vacuum cleaner, cordless drill, right down to lots of books and even new make-up.

KitSound seem to be slightly quirky, evident in their instruction manual which reads different to the usual plan, boring and technical manuals you get with these types of products. KitSound describe the Boom Clock as a way to wake up in the morning with some bass, allowing you to bust some shapes! I don't know about you but I'm not a morning person and dancing or 'busting shapes' is not my type of thing on a morning. Still, the Boom Clock has a subwoofer meaning the sound will be pretty decent compared to many other alarm clocks out there. Even better, if you dislike listening to the radio then you can simply listen to music from your chosen Apple device to get you out of bed. iPhone owners are probably concerned about random interference cackling through the speakers at night however KitSound have jammed in RF shielding, which means you don't need to leave your iPhone in flight mode when you have it docked into the Boom Clock.

The Boom Clock comes with 7 different dock adapters for various iPhones and iPods, luckily they are labelled albeit in tiny writing, so it did take a little while for me to find the correct adapter for an iPhone 3GS. I was quite impressed with the appearance of the Boom Clock, it had a large LED display and it looks modern, black and sleek. The only problem I've had with the appearance with the Boom Clock is it attracts fingerprints like nothing I've seen before, and it drives me round the bend so I'm always dusting it! If this doesn't bother you as much as it does me, then it won't be a problem. The Boom Clock does have quite a few buttons, and I'm usually the sort of person who point blank ignores instruction manuals but on this occasion I had to use it as I didn't have a clue how to set the alarm clock up.

The instructions aren't too in depth, and some things I did have to work out on my own, but they are straight to the point with some fun added in such as when mentioning how to adjust the volume it suggests 'Don't be shy, give it some beans.' The alarm clock can thankfully be set to go off Monday-Friday, or if you want to it can be set for 7 days. Unfortunately if you get up at different times each day of the week, then it will involve re-setting the alarm clock each time. I was impressed at the signal strength for the radio, and I've had no problems there, so I decided to connect my iPhone and test the sound using that. The first thing I noticed when I connected my iPhone was a quiet, high pitched noise. It is very faint, and when I asked my partner if he could hear it he didn't know what I was going on about, but of course I could just hear that sound all the time. I have since noticed it only makes this noise if the iPhone is fully charged, if it's sitting on the dock and merrily charging away, there is no noise. It's not loud enough to be obtrusive to my sleep, but it is irritating when I notice the sound, but I must have better hearing then my partner who can't hear it at all!

The LED display on the front was rather bright, and the large snooze button labelled 'Shhhhhhh!' needs to be pressed and it goes through 3 different settings of brightness. I've found even the dimmest one to be too bright for me during the night, and as a result I have to turn the boom clock around so the display is facing away from me. When the boom clock turns on in the morning, pressing the snooze button allows 5 minutes of extra sleep before it goes off again, and turning the boom clock off when it's in alarm mode is done by pressing the alarm reset button, and not the off button, which did catch me out at first when I tried to turn it off! You have to set the source of the alarm depending on what you prefer to hear, you can choose the radio, iPod or buzzer settings.

The Boom Clock also comes with a small remote control however it looks and feels really cheap and it's pretty poor, especially considering the nice design of the boom clock itself. You have to install the watch-type battery yourself into the remote, and then you can use it, however the remote rarely works and it's ended up in the bin. I would often press the buttons and nothing would happen, occasionally a button press would register but it's quicker to just walk up to the Boom Clock and press the buttons on there!

The Boom Clock is a decent modern alarm clock, allowing you to wake up in the morning to either the radio or your iPhone or iPod. It can also be used as just an iPod dock as the sound quality is actually quite decent for such a small gizmo. The Boom Clock now means I wake up in the morning to the sound of music, rather than the irritating alarm noises from my iPhone, and it does the job that it's made to do without many problems. It costs £55 on Amazon which I feel is a reasonable price for the Boom Clock.