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Not a bad clock radio. It looks and sounds great but I wish it had a few more features such as a telescoping antenna instead of a wire loop antenna. The radio reception would be better. Also, a signal strength indicator would be nice to let you know the best position for the antenna. I wish the CD player was a little quieter. This radio is on my nightstand right next to my pillow. When I run the CD at night with the volume low, I can hear the CD spinning which is a bit distracting. When you listen to the radio, the station ID disappears after a few seconds. You can hit a button to make it reappear but I wish it would show all the time the radio is playing. One more thing, the display has two brightness levels. I wish it had one more level a little bit dimmer.

It is definitely an improvement over their earlier models, the RC-CD300 and the RC-CD500.

This alarm clock could have been perfect. After all, it has a space-saving design, good sound quality, and a fairly user-friendly interface. The only problem is the LCD, which is so bright that you could get a set of them to use on airport runways. The bright blue light literally fills my entire room and could give any child's nightlight a run for its money. I've solved this problem by buying a satin sleep mask, not for myself, but for the alarm clock. Its elastic strap fits nicely over the top of the unit, and while I sacrifice the ability to tell time...at least I can get a good night's rest.

My overall advice? Keep shopping. Buying an alarm clock that prevents you from ever falling asleep makes about as much sense as buying an umbrella with a built-in sprinkler system.

It's nice to see that the price is going down on this item. I bought it new on a previous listing and from a different supplier for around $80. This panasonic performs like a much higher priced cd/radio, so I consider myself lucky to have found it.
The EQ is a really nice feature with four settings to customize the sound of your particular musical tastes. The CD player is easy to use ... and the mechanism on mine is quiet. Fortunately the plug-in antenna works fine in my area to pull in all my favorite stations with the digital tuner. It took a little while to become comfortable with the alarm settings, but once you've achieved that you can make good use of the three available wakeup calls.
It's true that even on the dimmest setting the backlight for the clock is bright. That only bothers me when I might wake in the middle of the night and am curious about how many more hours I have before I have to be up. I feel like a deer in headlights trying to adjust my viewing angle to where I can actually see the time. But that's my only complaint and it's not a biggie considering that I really enjoy listening to the CD350 before and after sleep. Kudos to Panasonic.

Purchased this Panasonic recently to replace a old GE. I am a fan of Panasonic so I thought I would give their clock radio a try. As far as clock radios go the digital tuner and stereo sound was impressive for the price. The built in eq was a nice option that doesn't quite help. The sound is full with decent range though the low end is lacking. Buttons are small and you need to be above the radio to see what's going on. The unit is tall and takes up a larger footprint than most in its price range. Most of this I can live with but the dimmer was unbearable. Even at low (2 Settings) you can make shadow puppets on the walls. If you can live with the dimmer then I would recommend this one for the price, options, and sound. Most every clock radio I looked at had several flaws. It comes down to finding out which ones you can live with. I ended up returning it and purchasing a cheaper Sony with poor audio but a good dimmer. You would think after generations of radios there would be reasonably priced one with a decent dimmer, sufficient memory backup time, quality stereo audio, with a user friendly layout. One day maybe.

I don't need an alarm to wakeup, so that's not why I bought this item. I also don't use it to listen to the radio. I did buy it so I could listen to relaxation CD's as I fall asleep, an often difficult task. Unfortunately, the brightness of the display adds to the difficulty. I have to drape a dark fabric square over it, even on the dim setting, which I can easily lift to see the time when I wake in the middle of the night. The lack of a headphone jack is something else I missed when I purchased this. I am really disappointed about that feature. And, yes, I agree with others that settings are not intuitive. I have to keep the instructions right by my bedside and refer to them every season that the time changes, and even then, it takes a few tries to get it right.

But finally, I've had an intermittent problem with this thing, and almost brought it in for warranty repair, but then it stopped, just before I was going to. Then of course, when the problem resumed, the warranty period had passed. The problem is that for some bizarre reason, the radio bleeds through and plays faintly in the background while listening to a CD!

I bought this because of the design, and the small amount of nightstand space it occupies, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it.