Timex Clock Radio, Nice for the Price

Seeing as that some of the features on my old radio alarm clock just didn't seem to work any more. I decided it was time to go purchase a new one. After shopping around for a little bit, I decided on purchasing the Timex T307S Clock Radio at a cost of $30.

The Timex T307S Clock Radio is fairly attractive, and is silver and black in color. One thing I liked about it, is that it is not very big and doesn't take a whole lot of room on my nightstand. It stands at approximately 6" tall, 5" wide, and 4" deep. It isn't very heavy at all, and I would approximate its weight at about 1 - 2 pounds.

I purchased the Timex T307S clock radio, because it had some features that I liked. The features included on this radio are as follows.

Dual alarm system that allows you to set the clock to wake you up that two different times.

Battery backup system that ensures the alarm will sound at the set time even if the power goes out at night.

A 7-5-2 alarm system that allows you to set the time for a full week, weekdays only, or just for Saturday and Sunday.

The ability to set the alarm to wake you up to your favorite radio station, buzzer, or 4 different nature sounds (ocean surf, birds, brook, wind chimes).

An easy-to-read digital display screen that is fairly large and easy to see at night.

The ability to preset up to 18 radio stations and listen to them with a touch of a button. (12 FM and 6 AM presets).

Sleep mode that allows you to set the timer for up to 90 minutes. It allows you to fall asleep listening to your favorite radio station, or the different nature sounds that are pre-recorded on the radio.

Ability to connect an MP3 player, (such as an iPod) Discman, or any other device by plugging it into the auxiliary jack on the right side of the clock radio.




The well lit display screen shows the time in numerals that are about an inch tall, which makes it very easy to see what time is. The display screen also has a dimmer feature that allows you to tone down the brightness when you're sleeping at night. To adjust the brightness all you have to do is hit the snooze button to adjust the brightness to either a high, medium, or low setting.

The display screen also shows you the different alarm settings. It will tell you if you have the alarm set to go off every day, Monday through Friday, or just on the weekend. It also shows if you have the alarm set to wake you up by playing the radio or the pre-recorded nature sounds. The display screen also indicates AM or FM, as well as the radio station that you are tuned to. Other things on the display are the year, date, and a low backup battery indicator.

On the top of the Timex T307S clock radio there are seven buttons. There is a separate button for setting each of the alarms, a well as a forward, and a reverse button for setting the alarms or searching for radio stations. The other buttons are an "enter" button, which is used when setting the time/alarms, as well as an off button and a large sized snooze button. I have noticed that the off and snooze button are fairly close to each other. Though it hasn't happened to me yet, I think it might be pretty easy to mistakenly turn the alarm off by accident when you're actually reaching for the snooze button to get an extra 10 minutes of sleep.

The sound of the radio itself is okay. For a $30 clock radio you really can't expect much, but it does pump out plenty of volume to wake you up in the morning. I usually turn it up little bit louder after I get out of bed in the morning and listen to it as I'm getting ready for work. I can still hear it fairly well in the other rooms of my three-bedroom ranch style house, and it automatically shuts itself off after an hour. The radio reception seems very good as well. I have had no problem picking up any of the stations that I normally listen to on this digitally tuned radio.

As I stated earlier, you can choose to listen to nature sounds when waking up or falling asleep listening to this radio. The nature sounds themselves are okay, but in my mind they could be a little bit better. To me, the "ocean surf" sound seems to have way too many seagull noises, the "brook" sound, sounds mostly like a bunch of frogs, and the "wind chimes" don't really sound like any wind chimes that I have ever heard. I have to admit though that waking up to the nature sounds is a lot better than being jarred awake by the buzzer or blaring music.

One thing I don't like about the Timex T307S clock radio is that it doesn't have the capability to set both alarms to wake up to the radio, or nature sounds. Alarm #1 only plays the radio, and alarm #2 only has nature sounds. Overall, this really isn't a big deal, but I thought I should included in my review.

Another thing about this clock radio is that it doesn't allow you to set different volume levels if you are using both the alarms. I thought it would be nice if I could find a clock radio with two alarms that would allow me to set one alarm early at a low volume level, and the second alarm to go off at a higher volume to make sure I'd wake up. I looked at quite a few different clock radios priced at $100 or less and didn't see any with a feature like that. It would have been nice if they had an alarm that featured a volume level that automatically increased itself to wake you up, like I have seen on some clock radios.

Overall, I must say that I am very satisfied with my purchase of this Timex clock radio. With the features that are included at a very reasonable price, it was a pretty good buy.

Thanks for reading my review,
hddan