RCA RP5430 AM/FM Clock Radio with 1.4-Inch Display and Auto Time Set

Comment: I purchased this unit back in February 2007 for the main reason that my previous Timex clock radio was not reprogrammable to the change in Daylight Saving Time start/end dates. It had a full calendar (day/month/date/year), but DST was pre-programmed, and an email to support noted that the DST dates could not be adjusted and I would have to manually reset the clock 4 times a year (the new/real DST dates as well as the programmed ones). There was also a small but recurring issue of the LCD display and backlight fading while on AC power, but appearing sharp and bright on battery power, which made no sense.

Once I started using this RCA clock radio, there were a number of features I grew to love:

- The programmable snooze timer. As noted in a few other reviews, I hate the default 9 minute setting, and have mine at 12... enough to actually fall back asleep, but still a even divisor of 60 minutes.

- The easy-to-use time and alarm settings. They run both forward and backward, so no "winding around the clock 23 hours" to go back 30 minutes.

- The simplicity of the DST setting - flip the switch to DST and the clock simply advances one hour without disturbing the actual time setting or any alarms. Flip back to standard time and it subtracts an hour.

- A similar feature for US mainland time zones - there are settings for Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific, so if you need to take the clock for a move or extended-stay trip, you can adjust to the time zone as easily as DST.

- The battery backup uses simple AA batteries (2), so you don't have to worry about finding lithium watch batteries to maintain time and alarm.

- And of course, the Nap feature. This is settable from 10 minutes to 2 hours in 10-minute increments (it starts at :20 - to get to :10, just cycle past 2:00) and is indispensable for us weekend afternoon nappers.

It's been running for 3 years now, through several extended power failures (one was 13 hours), and it has not missed a beat.

Comment: I like many features, like the alarm starting out quiet and slowly getting louder.

I don't like that sections of the digits have started to go out so I can't tell if it's 9 or 10 o'clock.

Comment: This alarm clock was bought because it looked like it came from a reputable brand. However, my experience with it says otherwise. I've had it fail to ring on me at least twice, which caused me to miss a very important event. This is unacceptable. I also spent the better part of half an hour trying to get the time to reset when I accidentally changed the time instead of the alarm (very easy to do when it's the same switch for all 3: alarm1,2,time). I found out the "auto-set" is some BS with them just presetting the time in the factory (the batteries come with the alarm), so if you mess up the time, don't expect to have it sync with an atomic clock or anything. And after finally setting the time and alarm, the alarm doesn't even go off! Even though I set the time and it told me the alarm was armed, it still didn't go off. What rubbish! And don't hit the nap button on accident either, you'll spend another good 5 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it off. I haven't tried the line-in feature, but with the crappy sound quality (what do you expect?), I wouldn't put my money in expecting this thing to wake me up ever again. Invest in a better alarm clock!

Comment: Ive bought 2 of these clocks. The first one broke promptly after I bought it, i figured it was just a fluke. I've had the second one for about a year and the numbers have almost all burnt out. Dont waste your money.

Comment: I bought two of these clocks. I only wanted to buy one, but I had a horrible experience with the seller Polsteins Home & Beyond. Terrible seller in my opinion. Anyway, I got the clock and was impressed with the features at first. I liked how you could plug it in and it would automatically set the correct time. The only problem is, it couldn't hold accurate time, and I had no way to change or correct it!! Also I would go to shut off the alarm and accidentally hit the "NAP" button. The problem with that is there is no way to shut that off either! I had to wait till the alarm went off again to stop it. Also the alarm was unreliable, sometimes it would go off, and other times it wouldn't. Thankfully I am one of those people who always wakes up before the alarm, so I was never late to anything, but still that is unacceptable. Finally after about 6 months of using the clock, it went blank and never worked again. I then plugged in the second clock that I had and it had the same problems, and it also died after 6 months. Bottom line, horrible clock, horrible seller.