Coby clock radio with iPod/iPhone dock and mp3 jack

A clock radio is not traditionally a high tech device but if you’re like me and have trouble waking up in the morning it is an essential piece of technology. I had a few criteria when we had need to replace one.

  1. Cheap as possible – $100 clock radios are not for me at this time. The $30 range is the minimum I thought. Would meet all the criteria.
  2. Large numbers – Everyone in our house wears glasses so with bigger numbers some of us will be able to tell the time unaided.
  3. Mp3/Aux jack – I figured it would be nice to simply plug the phone into the radio so we could listen to a podcast or some mp3 music in through the radio instead of head phones or the tiny speaker built into the phone.
  4. Dual alarms (nice to have) – useful to have preset for the weekend that you can quickly enable.

Price – 4.5 / 5
Purchased for $25.13 on sale from about $34 at Canadian Tire. I would have been OK with the regular price so I was quite pleased when I saw it on sale.

Quality – 3.5 / 5
This unit hit all the marks for the required large numbers and mp3 jack. It didn’t however have the nice-to-have dual alarms.
The radio sound not spectacular but quite acceptable for the price range.

The sound for the iPod however is much better than I expected. Unfortunately we don’t use it much any more. It is an iPod nano and requires a computer to load song and podcasts on it.

The quality of the sound from the mp3 jack is not too bad yet disappointing overall. I had to crank the volume on the phone and the radio to get a decent listening level. The problem with this is that I could forget to turn the volume and it would be set for literally a rude awakening in the morning.

Overall – 4 / 5
This is a good quality radio for the price, even at the regular price. With decent sound, a nice large display, and an iPod/iPhone dock most people should be happy with this clock radio. The minor negatives of low sound in the mp3 jack and slightly complex buttons don’t hold me back from recommending it.

Rating
Pricestar star star star half-star
Qualitystar star star half-star
Overallstar star star star