Panasonic RC6299 Dual-Alarm Clock Radio – Customer Reviews

Our toddler got hold of our Sony Dream Machine and dispatched the one essential dial that controls time/alarm setting, so for several months we've been depending on internal body alarms--with the usual resultant catastrophes. What's more, since "spring forward" daylight savings the clock has been an hour off. Ah, parenthood. Finally we got around to ordering this Panasonic. But once out of the box (yesterday) the myriad problems quickly began to announce themselves. First, the design interface of the buttons is cryptic at best. Enlarge the image above and you'll see what I mean. Various functions are attributed to the same buttons, and they're all so squeezed together that the text directionals are not entirely clear. There are TWO time-set controls. Why? After fiddling with the danged thing last night I finally had to consult the instructions to set the alarm. In other words, it was not clear and apparent how to do a routine adjustment to a bottom-of-the-line component. Gimme a break. Even after reading the instructions we had difficulty. Maybe this was a lemon--and maybe not. We couldn't figure out how to make the "fast" function work in setting the alarm, so it took a long time and much button-pressing. We never did get it right, in fact.

This clock-radio represents much of what's wrong with the modern world, in albeit simplified terms:

1. Apparently it was designed by a troupe of monkeys. Seriously, Panasonic should be embarrassed by the poor design of this product. If I owned Panasonic stock (I don't) I would be selling today.

2. Just like car stereos, in which the classic, time-tested volume control knob is somehow not good enough (so they had to replace with complicated multi-function push-button controls that cannot be operated by anyone aside from the driver who has painstakenly learned the "rules"), the designers/manufactures of this clock-radio have taken a simple concept that worked...and ruined it.

3. Marketers/advertisers bombard us with lies about how great this product is.

4. Consumers, like a bunch of sheep, take the abuse--insuring the cycle will be repeated again, and again, ad nauseum.

Forget it. We want out. We're sending the blasted thing back today. Thankfully Amazon will refund our purchase and we can try again. There must be someone out there who can manufacture a clock-radio that does the job it was intended to do.

9/10/2002 12:00 AM | Rating:

I got this as a replacement for my girlfriend.It has a lot of nice features, but (unfortunately) we're considering taking it back...The biggest problem is that the buttons are too small and too close together.The snooze, while bigger than the rest, is in a corner that can be hard to hit if the clock is not faced a certain direction.That's bearable, but the rest of the 5-6 buttons are tiny little circles all in a tight row.The off button is in the middle of the row and I have yet to hit it without pushing at least a few others in the process.

Similarily, the buttons to set the clock/alarm are positioned so that it is difficult to change the alarm time with one hand.

Finally, the "Tender Wake-Up System" is nice, but whenever I push snooze or off the volume goes up to full for a fraction of a second.Just long enough to really annoy me.

Overall the clock is just... annoying.We'll probably keep it and we'll probably get used to it, but I certainly wouldn't buy it again.

7/29/2002 12:00 AM | Rating: