Review submitted by Radioman
Author’s Rating:
This radio is what you would expect from Coby. The radio is lightweight and nicely designed. The dial, on off and AM/FM switches are small and the printing is very small so I wouldn’t recommend it for older folks or those with vision problems. This would be good for sports fans who like to listen to the play by play on the radio while at the game.

Review submitted by Jeff Meschewski
Author’s Rating:
Works best when stationary, gets a little sketchy when I take it running. Very light and feels “cheap” but I have dropped it more times then I should have already but it still works perfect.

All in all I am totally satisfied for the price I paid.

Review submitted by Jones N
Author’s Rating:
I should have listened to the other reviews, but for that price I figured that I would give it a shot.

Batteries drain way too fast, maybe because of the LED light that is on the whole time, which serves no purpose but to drain the batteries! The sound quality is horrible and stations at the end of the dial bleed in to other stations, and you have to move the dial in the perfect spot in order to get reception on each station. If you listen for a long time be prepared to use up your batteries fast.

I’ll be looking for something better.

Review submitted by Mr. Allnut
Author’s Rating:
This is really a toy, not a good radio. Make your purchase knowing that ahead of time. I gave it to the kids to play with.

It is under $10.00 for a reason. If being able to clearly tune in your channels is a must, stay away.

Review submitted by Judy
Author’s Rating:
The reason I bought this radio was to take it when I walk the dog. I find that I have to constantly hold onto the radio and reposition it to keep the signal, which seems to fade out our dissolve into static every few feet. I don’t know if this is from interference or what, but it is really irritating. Buy something else!

Review submitted by A. Davis
Author’s Rating:
I have been going through a few alarm clock/music systems in recent years, because I couldn’t find one I really loved. I wanted something with good sound quality, dual alarms, good radio reception, and MP3 compatibility — in a reasonably small package. I wanted to be able to fall asleep and/or wake up to the playlist of my choice, but I also want to be able to listen to my favorite radio programs. And I wanted it to sound good. I have finally found it. This clock/radio/iPhone player has great sound with a bass booster and “mega-expand” feature that makes the full spectrum of sound seem “bigger.” I can’t get over how much I like the quality of the music that comes out of this little box.

The alarm settings allow you to choose whether the alarm goes off all days, weekdays only, weekends only — I don’t have to remember to set the alarm Sunday night or turn it off Friday night. The radio works very well, even on public radio stations that tend to have weaker signals.

The whole setup was pretty simple — very user-friendly. I only had to consult the directions on a couple of points. The buttons are labeled well so you can figure most of it out. The clock is set at the factory, and there’s a lithium battery installed, so the clock is set as soon as you plug the radio in. (It is set to eastern time as the default, so you may have to adjust it.) And of course, battery backup means you don’t have to reset everything after a power outage.

A number of iPod docking stations will *play* iPhone music but won’t *charge* your iPhone. This one does both, which is great. My iPhone is fully charged every morning — one less thing for me to remember. One caveat — if you forget to put your iPod or iPhone in the dock, and you have selected your MP3 player as your alarm, there is no backup. The radio doesn’t kick in if you forgot to plug in your iPod.

The system is relatively compact and fits easily on my nightstand without taking up the entire surface. The controls are pretty simple to use. I didn’t have any trouble turning the alarm music off the first time I used this system. This replaces another Sony Dream Machine that had unbelievably complex controls/buttons. I’m much happier with this one. Definitely a keeper!

Review submitted by Darin D. Smith
Author’s Rating:
First off; if you are reading this, you have been looking at the overpriced product site. Amazon is selling the exact same model for $20 less at the time I’m writing this; do a search. Now, for my review.

I was looking for a new iPhone Dock/Alarm Clock for my bedside. I previously had an iHome unit that worked great; however, one night I reached over and pushed my iPhone back while it was in the cradle, bending the contacts to where it would only work intermittently. My requirements were;

-Reasonably small footprint

-Ability to dock my iPhone while in its case

-Ability to play iTunes as well as Pandora

-Support my iPhone more firmly than the iHome

I found this one at a well known members club, and dropped my iPhone in it to try it out. It fit, it sounded good, so I picked it up for about $70. Once I got it home, I checked it out more, and I’m pretty impressed with the quality of it for the price. It sounds great for the bedroom; it’s no Bose, but for less than 1/3 the price, I don’t expect it to. It would work great in a kitchen or small living room too.

The iPhone fits nicely in it without it’s case using the adapter, or in the case with no adapter. I don’t like the fact that it’s not supported by anything while it sits there, but I suspect that most docks that would support my iPhone would require me to take it out of the case. I understand that earlier models had an adjustable support for your iPod/iPhone; the lack of including it on later models is downright stupid. I cut a square of black foam and attached it to the unit behind the iPhone. Perfect solution; you can’t see it at all when the phone is in the cradle, and it gives me great support while I’m using the iPhone touchscreen.

The small remote works well. It has basic control of the current playlist in iTunes (Next Track, Pause/Play), as well as the usual functions like Volume, Input, Tune, Snooze, ect. It won’t control your Pandora at all. For less than $100, I don’t expect more control from the remote; plus, the unit isn’t intended to function as a full stereo. It has a cheap feel to it; the buttons are the type that are raised blisters on smooth plastic. My experience with these are that the blisters over the well used buttons tend to break after repeated use. Independent rubber covers over the buttons would have made a world of difference. I also would have liked to see something like a storage clip on the back of the unit to store the remote; it’s small enough to be easily lost.

Pros:

-Elegant looks

-Small footprint

-Great sound

-Works with iPhone in case

Cons:

-Remote has a cheaper feel to it than I think it should

-Lack of built in iPod/iPhone back support

I docked it a star for the cons listed above, mainly the lack of support; there is no reason that it should not have been included. I dock for what the intended function is versus the price, not for what I might wish something would be.

Conclusion; great sounding unit, works great with the iPhone, cheap and easy modification to provide excellent support for it. Just what I was looking for.

Review submitted by Howard W. Meister
Author’s Rating:
Overall I think this is a decent product and didn’t have much trouble setting it up.

After reading a couple of the other reviews, I was looking primarily looking for a charging dock with a clock and alarm. This unit does have those and the things I don’t care about are the radio reception for me it’s an alarm clock.

Likes:

The remote control as it gives you a lot of control of the iphone, choosing a different playlist is one of those.

Clock dispay, not too bright in medium mode

Dislikes:

A little big (only a little bit)

Removed adjustable back piece

Can’t use cover with docking plate

My dislikes are a minor issue for me so I gave it 4 stars.

Review submitted by G. Roebuck
Author’s Rating:
Over all for the price it is a really nice unit. The sound is definatley not as good as say a Klipsch or Bose but then it is 1/3 of the price of the Bose cheaper than the Klipsch and is a pretty neat alarm clock by itself. It sets it’s own time and has a calendar. You can set the alarm for weekdays only (which I love) and have the alarm be a buzzer, radio, ipod or aux…(more on that) The remote functions well but I wish it was back lit since it is an alarm clock and more than likely it would be used at night as well.

Here are my complaints and why I only gave it three stars- The base is weak, even with mega bass. The mega expander is ..weird. The sound seems like it is coming from all places and does not sound good at higher levels. I would leave it off at all times. My biggest problem is with the ipod as alarm. I set it up and tested it and it worked..but the next morning my alarm did not go off. I thought maybe I messed something up in the settings, pulled the ipod touch (3rd gen) and put it back on and set up the alarm to test and tried it again and sure enough it went off. But the next morning nothing. Luckily I am one of those people who wake up before the alarm but once in a while..I need it. As far as I can tell, it seems if I leave it on the dock for a period of time the alarm function fails to call it as the sound. I can still fully operate it from the remote though so it’s not a failure in controling the ipod – because I can do it and when I test it after just putting the ipod in it it works. It only seems to fail if I leave the ipod on there for any length of time.

Which stinks because I bought to wake to ipod…and it fails at that every time.

Review submitted by A Texan by Choice
Author’s Rating:
We bought this clock radio to replace a small portable one for our master bathroom. My husband enjoys AM radio and I wanted a way to charge my iPhone as well as enjoy the iPod on the iPhone. The sound is amazing. Love the remote, love the ability to select or deselect Mega Xpand and Mega Bass effects, love that it remembers settings when unplugged, and that it keeps correct time with daylight savings. Great product.

Review submitted by jj
Author’s Rating:
The Excellent.

Battery or no battery, you have light and radio. If you have some AAs to stoke it with you won’t have to crank it. If you already have or buy separate a 6V AC wall charger and plug it in, you can charge the internal battery for a few hours of use. I think this is a great radio for the price to put away in your emergency kit. When the power goes out you will have some news, weather, or music and some light even if your batteries are missing or dead.

The Good.

This is a very reasonably priced radio for the features that it has. The crank charges an internal battery, so it will work even if you don’t have AAs handy to load it up with. The light is brighter than I expected, it will light a bedroom or kitchen enough to navigate in the glow. When held and directed toward reading material it is plenty bright enough to read a book from. A minute of cranking will give lots of minutes of light and even more of radio. you can run the radio and the light at the same time. You can charge it with a 6V wall wart, I did that overnight and got about 2 hours of light and about another 30 minutes of radio. The hand crank is easy to turn and you don’t have to turn it too hard or fast to get the charge light to light up bright. It will run off of AA “dry cells”. I haven’t tested the run times on this but I expect based on the comparative sizes of the internal battery you should get A couple dozen hours of radio and perhaps the same of light from 2 AA. I was able to tune some powerful AM stations at night that are about 500 miles away. FM from 50 miles away in the daytime is just fine. Ear phones work in both ears and the FM appears to be Stereo and the sound isn’t too bad for music or voice on earphones, much more fidelity than the speaker very nice for the price. I can’t receive the weather band stations where I live, on this radio nor on any of my others, so I can’t test this. I do get static and it seems to work the same on WX as my other WX radios.

The Bad.

This is a cheap radio. It isn’t of great build quality. The plastic is kind of old school cheap feeling. The sound is a bit thin from the speaker, The tuning knob is the small middle knob and you will pass over stations back and forth to find what you want. When you run on “dry cells” as they call it AA batteries, the LED light is not as bright as the internal battery, perhaps a 30% reduction in light output. Still useful light.

The Ugly.

The knobs are funky and stick out at various angles like they are bent, they work OK, but don’t feel very positive in the band selection especially on AM. Sometimes the tuning seems to skip out and you get no signal when turning the tuning knob, a quick wiggle of the tuning knob seems to restore the reception.

Summary.

I’m buying a few more for emergency kits. I think you would be glad to have this after an earthquake or storm takes out power and your batteries are used up, you will still have light and radio with a minute of turning the crank. I give this 3.5 stars, I would go 4 stars if the knobs weren’t so funky. You can’t buy anything else with these features for this price. For something infrequently used this should be good enough. Stick it in your emergency kit and throw in some Energizer E2 Lithium batteries with a 10+ year shelf life (leave them out of the radio to avoid accidental discharge) and you can ignore this radio for years and it should be there for you when you need it.

I loaded two AA rechargeable NiMh batteries, they are about 2700mah but a few years old. I turned on the radio and the light for 24 hours. At the end of 24 hours the light was dim but usable. I then left the radio on for a full week (7 days X 24 hrs/day or 168 hours total) FM some AM stations generally loud enough to hear anywhere in a room. After a week it is still running and I think it could go several more days. The light is very dim after a week. To get a bright light all you do is switch from “dry cell” AA batteries to the dynamo internal battery after winding and the light is extremely bright for reading or other uses. My dog jumped on the antenna and bent it, real world stuff, still works great. So while inexpensive it has amazingly long lasting battery life which is important for an emergency use radio.

Review submitted by JG
Author’s Rating:
Was looking for a radio to put in the go-bag for emergencies and stumbled across this radio after hours of digging. Upon receiving it I was impressed. I have only owned it for about 2 weeks now, the dynamo feature does work and I put two freshly recharged NiCD batteries in it and it works well. The NOAA radio feature works but nothing like my much more expensive Oregon Scientific radio. Reception is a little weaker then a wall powered radio but in an emergency this would definitely work. This radio has AM/FM/NOAA radio options and includes a light on the side for those days when your flashlight batteries are dead. The dynamo feature works, after about one minute of cranking I could activate the light and had about five minutes of light operation. The sound quality is a little muffled but you can still understand it.

Review submitted by J. Waggoner
Author’s Rating:
Much smaller than i expected. Knobs seem a little cheap. Dial is too wide to be accurate. Doesn’t seem like it would hold up well to alot of use. But, sound quality is good, dynamo works well and last for quite a while. Portable and easy to use. I would by another for the car or an emergency because they are inexpensive but i also would have a more sturdy back-up for camping just in case.