Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony ICF-C318 Automatic Time Set Clock Radio with Dual Alarm (Black)

THIS IS A VERY EASY TO USE ALARM CLOCK AND ALSO HAS A GOOD RADIO FOR A SMALL ALARM CLOCK.

Good all around and it's a Sony, but it's a clock radio and a good one but it's not a radio to enjoy for hours.

We've had this clock for a year and a half--it's worked fine until last week, when for some reason the snooze button failed to work. I thought I had done something wrong, so I thought nothing of it at first. Well now my husband and I have both been late to work 3 times, thinking that we've hit a wrong button, even though we've never had a problem before. The snooze button blinks, says it's going to snooze for 10 minutes, and then the alarm never goes off again! I've never had an alarm clock malfunction in this way. I'm calling Sony today, and am very disappointed and upset about this mishap with their clock.

This alarm clock radio was a bit disappointing for a Sony.
Pros: Dual alarm clock

Cons: Alarm settings a bit confusing to set up and I had to read the directions, but for an alarm clock? Really?

Low light level on clock face. We didn't want a night light, but even at the highest setting, we can barely see the time during the night because it is so dim.

Beeping alarm starts out slowly when it first goes off but builds with speed if you don't react quickly to turn it off. That can be irritating to say the least. At 5:00 AM does anyone jump quickly?

The radio is the biggest disappointment, since I prefer to wake that way vs my hubby with the beeping. The quality is horrid and the tuner is just as bad. I can't tune in clearly even to the local radio stations that I can with any other radio in the house, even the one that used to sit in the same place. There is no antenna or antenna wire to fiddle with that might have helped. It suggests turning the clock. Well even turning the silly thing backwards did not help. All I can get is music with static on any station I try to pull in. This really has shocked me with Sony. I did not buy this for a stereo, so I am not looking for that type of quality at all. Tuning into local stations w/o static would have been nice.

Time was not correct out of the box either, in fact it wasn't even there when I plugged it in. I had to set the whole thing up, which is fine if the product hadn't said it would be all set up for me. I'm wondering if I have received someone else's return/rejected alarm clock radio. That might explain a lot.

I would not recommend this alarm clock.

The auto time set feature does work as advertised. I plugged mine in and it said the right time and date. Maybe the reviews that say the auto time set doesn't work are from people who don't live in the eastern time zone. That is the default setting for this clock. The display is nice and big and the brightness levels are just right in my opinion. The bright setting is easy to see in a sunlit room and the dim setting is very dim for those who don't want it too bright while sleeping. The only thing I don't love about this clock is that the display is sort of a pea green color instead of a bright led green. The alarms are very easy to set and change. I used to have to hold down two buttons and watch 24 hrs go by to change the time on my old GE clock. Now all I have to do is twist the dial to go forward or back while setting the alarm. Very nice. This is a great little clock for the money and it does everything it says.