Philips DC190 iPod Docking Clock Radio

I bought this item because of it style and listed functions. It does look good, but the device is a little difficult to get used to. Just about all the control buttons are flush mounted because of this style, and as a result are sometimes hard to locate, especially when you are in a morning funk when the alarm is going off. The all-important "snooze" button is a classic case of this. It is also recessed, and you can easily miss it, smudging the beatiful smooth surfaces in your attempts to snooze it. All in all, it's OK, it is just that I bought it as a daily use alarm clock, and it is taking me a while to come to grips w/ it.

I've had my new Philips clock for about 2 months now. It's a lot smaller than my Sony Dream Machine, which I loved for it's speakers/audio as well as the easy-to-use features like snooze, nap and switching from standard to daylight savings time. But enough about that old clock...

I purchased this clock for several reasons, but primarily for my iPod (there is a non-iPod version of this clock). For an alarm clock, I'm happy with the audio quality. It's small, it looks sleek and it's relatively easy to set up in terms of selecting the iPod for the alarm. Additionally it includes 2 alarm settings that you can associate with 1 day of the week, every day or Mon-Fri.

As an alarm clock, it's not so wonderful for two reasons. The buttons, including power, snooze and volume, feel cheap and are not easy to push/press (in order to push a button, I have to apply equal pressure on the other side of the unit). And as far as I can tell, the snooze only works for up to...Read more

The Philips DC190 is a decent alarm clock and docking station. Setting up the alarm clock was simple, although I did have to consult the "Quick start guide" to learn how to set the time and the alarms. I used an old ipod photo for testing and it fit perfectly into the cradle.

With the DC190 you can set separate alarms for both the weekday and the weekend. I like to sleep later on the weekend, so it's nice not to have to remember to change the alarm on the weekends. On the other hand, the DC190 does not give the user a lot of flexibility outside of the weekday/weekend options. People who have to wake up at different times on different days, may not find this alarm clock useful. While it's easy to learn the stops involved in setting up the alarm, it would be a pain to have to change the alarm time every day. With my cheap Walgreens alarm clock, I'm able to change the alarm in a snap whereas the DC190 requires fiddling with several buttons in order to change the...Read more