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Link to Downl0ad sony icf-cl75ip manual
Downl0ad sony icf-cl75ip manual
Download sony icf-cl75ip manual pdf guide
Heathkit’s Triumphant Return? Heathkit, the storied purveyor of high-quality DIY electronics kits that inspired a generation of enthusiasts and launched the careers of many engineers, has returned from the dead. We think. At least it seems that way from this build log by [Spritle], an early adopter of the rebooted company’s first offering. But if [Spritle]’s experience is any indication, Heathkit has a long way to go to recreating its glory days. The Explorer AM radio kit. currently Heathkit’s sole complete kit offering – they do offer a few upgrade and repair boards for earlier Heathkit products – is far from the classic Heathkit experience, at least to those of us who actually assembled one of the company’s myriad offerings back in the day. The most glaring departure from the old days: the Explorer kit does not require soldering. The PCB is drilled with oversized holes for machine screws and nuts, and component leads are simply wound around the screws and torqued down. A handy method, perhaps, and accessible to electronics newbies, but hardly suitable for delicate component leads. Indeed, [Spritle] reports several over-torqued screws pinching off component leads almost to the point of not having enough lead left to make a connection. Imagine the frustration of destroying a component and not being able to complete the build. [Spritle] also reports some disturbing errors with the manual for this kit. Heathkit was famed for the quality of their assembly instructions, and their manuals were the “holy of holies” in your project. Nothing else was to be touched before
you read the manual, which guided you through the assembly process in exquisite detail. But this manual leaves out instructions for installing one resistor, and gets the color code wrong for another one. Having parts left over on a classic Heathkit project would be an indication that you did something very wrong; a builder not as observant as [Spritle] might have had a very confusing time trying to trace that error. And expecting an electronics newbie, which seems to be the target market for this kit, to catch a color code error is hard to take. Yes, attention to detail is an important skill for the budding electronics hobbyist, but why throw curveballs before the hitter knows how to hold the bat? Personally, I don’t recall any non-solder kits in the Heathkit catalogs of yore; in fact I recall the instruction manuals having extensive soldering lessons in case your iron handling skills were not quite up to snuff. My first kit, an SW-717 shortwave receiver. was recommended by my neighbor, a ham trying to get my 11-year-old self into amateur radio. He drilled me on soldering skills for hours before we ever broke open the parts envelopes, and it paid off, both for that build and in the long run with a life skill that I’m still proud of to this day. Looking back on my first build, it seems like the most valuable part of it was that mentorship. Knowing that I had someone to guide me and answer my questions was incredibly helpful. I’d love to be on the other side of that mentoring relationship today with my kids, and the Heathkit of old would be a fantastic way to do it. I’d pay a lot of money to bust open a new Heathkit project with my kids. But a no-solder kit? What’s the point? I’m not saying that there’s no place for a no-solder experience as a “gateway drug” to more complicated kits. But the choice of this kit as the first offering is puzzling; it begs the question of where Heathkit sees the company going from here. The price point is baffling too – $150USD for a battery-powered AM radio with no speaker. Yes, it looks nice, but I’m not willing to pay a premium for that. Where Heathkit goes from here is anybody’s guess. Our own [Brian Benchoff] has been keeping close tabs on the on again, off again Heathkit reboot. and earlier announcements of a Heathkit return that included a reddit AMA and a bizarre geocache promotion. We really hope that Heathkit makes a comeback, but for now, all we can do is watch and wait. And practice soldering with the kids.
Post navigation I think it’s the ST-225R you’re thinking of. That drive could be used with an RLL controller. I don’t know that the ST-225 can be. Unfortunately, my most recent experience with that model drive (beyond testing the one I recently obtained) was roughly 29 years ago. It’s entirely possible that I tried an RLL controller on a regular 225, but I can’t say for sure. ) Many RLL drives were just MFM drives that had been formatted and tested as RLL and had a number of defects low enough to qualify for use with the denser encoding. Early hard drives went through the same progression as most CPUs, early on, getting enough that pass for higher speed/recording density is hard. By the end of a design’s production nearly 100% that aren’t uselessly defective can run at the highest speed or recording density. Then the different ‘bins’ are merely marketing. So when RLL first hit the scene, your chance of failure at reformatting to RLL was high, largely because the sector defect map on the case label wasn’t valid for the higher density. You could just go without entering the defect list in the controller BIOS low level format then use a DOS utility to test and block bad clusters, but then you had that reminder of how many bad clusters were taking up space. For MFM drives with a very short defect list, chances were good that doing a fresh low level format in MFM or RLL would come up with zero defects when tested after high level formatting. There are many historical Heathkit items that are still highly-coveted by amateur radio operators, for example their QRP transceivers, linear amplifiers, and so on, and I have to believe they could re-release many of them exactly as they were originally and turn a profit. They own the rights to all the old designs, and by replicating prior kits exactly, they could supplement their income selling repair/replacement parts for built-up kits already in use… Not an expert on HeathKit stuff, having never seen or heard of one until the introduction of the Internet. But I imagine that *identical* kits to the original would be impossible seeing as how some of the specific components may no longer be widely available. For instance, I would imagine any tube based kits or those with multi-value capacitors, or specific IC’s would be tough to recreate. Not an expert on their products so I might be way off. As for their current offering…. huh? For $150 I could grab one of those old Radio Shack style 300 in 1 kits with the spring terminals. No soldering and a much broader scope of projects to learn from. As a specific example, take their SB-220 linear amp. It is a much-prized amp, commanding a respectable price on the used market. It is also so well-regarded that several people offer kits to replace the tubes used, ‘re-cap’ kits to account for aging capacitors, and some folks have even offered conversion services to put them on 6 meter band (something they were not designed for). There are no unique tubes or other parts in the amp that can not be sourced today, AFAIK. If the SB-220 kit were offered at a price comparable to an Ameritron amp of the same power rating, many hams would prefer to get the Heathkit amp and invest a bit of sweat-equity into an amp they built. I imagine the market would snatch up 1,000-2,000 of this kit were it available, once pent-up demand is satisfied, a few hundred units a year would sell year after year, if not more. when I was a kid, the sb-104 was the new hotness. my father was also going for his ham radio license, so I was lucky that
he would buy the rig setup we both would use ;) mid 70’s, IIRC. we had the sb-104 and the matching linear amp sb-230. that sb-104 was a bear to build. I was a young teen and I could focus on it better than my father could, and it still took well over a month to build, and it didn’t work on the first try. I don’t think either of us were good enough to tshoot it, and so we drove it to the local heathkit store (which was also a repair center) and in a few weeks, they fixed it and tuned it. I have no idea how much that costed, but it was a nice luxury to have. the 104 was one of the first air-cooled transceiver (no fans) and even its linear (sb230) was fanless with some kind of berylium block to connect the metal-case transmitting tube to the rear heatsink. there were many warnings in the heathkit manual about how careful you have to be with that stupid block and the tube-block-heatsink connection. between 75 and 80, I probably built more than 10 heathkit things (clocks, ham radio stuff, some test equip). matching the build manual quality level from back them to today would be hard and expensive. if I ever see new things to that quality level, I’m usually surprised (sad to say). I don’t remember those Rat Shack kits teaching much. The better ones had a little bit of circuit theory but not really enough that you could use it to design anything yourself. Most were just connect the numbers and then… hey. your done. They need to deep-6 the screw connector boards! Soldering isn’t that hard, and those that want to build a radio aren’t going to be scared of a little soldering; they will likely already have an iron or two… I’d love to see their older kits broken down into 4 line items: assembly manual + PCB, manual + PCB + enclosure, hard-tofind components like tunable caps, coils, and antennae, and as a complete kit. The manual gives the purchaser the right to build the design (and the theory behind it), and they should price it like a textbook that contains a license to build. It’s the build manual with the explanations and theory behind the build that are the true value. People don’t painstakingly assemble these things because they want an AM radio, they want to know how it works, so they can open it up and show people that, “That resistor is there to … and that cap filters …” The enclosures are art and convenience, and should be priced accordingly. The hard to find components can be rare and valuable, as well as expensive to design/create. By selling them separately, you also allow repair of vintage units already out there. And by pricing the regular components separately, they’re ensuring buyers that they’re not selling them 2c components for $2 each, and reinforcing that the value is in the manual, design, and any rare components. Will they do that; probably not. And they won’t be able to sell too many $150 speakerless AM radios, so they’ll fade away again. Perhaps before they go belly up, they’ll scan and release all their original build manuals… nah. That’s just wishful thinking. I don’t think they’re back from the dead. It’s just someone who now owns their name willing to cash from some leftover parts by arranging the cheapest possible radio receiver and selling it at an outrageously inflated price. We could see other similar kits in the future and some people will buy them because it could be their last chance to get a HK kit. I’m pretty sure they will close shop for good when the last kits/parts are sold, then use the name to rebrand cheap chinese junk. Well, in my country there are at least two companies that make electronics kits. One of them, AVT, also prints some magazines for both hobbyists and pros. Most of those kits cost less than 30 dollars and include complete circuit description and basic assembly guides. They also sell both bundles of soldering tools and supplies and complete beginner’s courses on electronics. The only downside is they screw up from time to time by introducing design errors into circuits. Whoever got this idea to avoid soldering parts by using PCB with screws was an idiot. Next time they should use screw terminals glued to wooden board. Or better yet: twisting leads together. > Whoever got this idea to avoid soldering parts by using PCB with screws was an idiot. Actually it was a great idea – in the 1960’s. “Making A Transistor Radio – by George Dobbs, G3RJV” (A Ladybird Book) This implementation seems less satisfactory. Compare to this offering for under USD $10: Hmmm… it has a digital display and an analog tuning capacitor. You see an FM radio kit. I see an $8 frequency counter! Some years ago there was a pre-assembled radio that worked that way and sold for a similar price in drug stores in the UK. It was very popular with hams who would mod it to do various things. Living in the US I missed that of course. i suggest we could go with a Raspberry Pi B and a basic circuit which measures temperature. i was putting one together two afternoons ago and our grandson came by – he’s 5 1/2 – and i just asked him to help me out with the soldering. i told him i didn’t know much about soldering and that i needed some help holding the parts – which i did. He helped and we soldered the 5 – 6 wires together and with some python code i found online we had the Pi sending the readings to ThingSpeak in no time. We was really happy and engrossed for the hour or so that it took to do the soldering. Now we need to figure out how to connect an H bridge to our Pi and a power source on a breadbord to make it run forward and backwards. Eventually i want to use it, with more code from the net, to control our parabolic solar hot water heater. Gee, you must be able to find kits or designs on the net that are siimple enough to work with on a breadboard at least and then after testing with a MM, solder up… Interesting reading about Heath possibly making a comeback. When I graduated from college, I bought myself a GR-2000 television kit and built it in the evenings and used it for many years. That was a great TV set and I wish I still had it. I remember it was as heavy as a small house.
Search Never miss a hack If you missed it Categories Our Columns Recent comments Now on Hackaday.io Never miss a hack Product Reviews ICF-CL75iP Posted November 25, 2011 UPDATE: sad to report, but this finely cosmentically and functionally conceived clock radio is simply unreliable, even with 1.10 firmware which I applied 7 days ago on the date of purchase. During the past 6 days each alarm has failed to activate the iPod once, and neither alarm resumes after snoozing. Sony, a clock radio has to provide reliable alarms- jobs depend on it! 0 of 0 voted this comment as helpful. Read comment ( 1 ) Review 22 for ICF-CL75iP From: San Francisco, CA I've had this product for: 1-3 months Share This Review
Beautiful, but Extremely Buggy Date: January 31, 2010 Pros: absolutely beautiful display, great user interface, low-light night mode, iPhone connectivity Cons: expensive, *tons* of software bugs First, let me give credit where credit is due - this clock is absolutely beautiful. The large, color-rich display is stunning, and the user interface for navigating the expansive menu options was very well executed. Kudos to Sony's design team. The clock also has some very nice features, such as being basically a mini media center, multiple display modes, and its lowlight night mode is perfect for people who don't like a lot of ambient light when they sleep.
However, there are a lot of very annoying problems with this model. First, as people have mentioned, you cannot delete the stock photos from the gallery. This wouldn't even be such a huge problem if the clock would at least remember what photo you've chosen as your background wallpaper. Every time I dock my iPhone, or the alarm goes off, or some other seemingly innocuous activity occurs, the photo resets to the pink flower, which is not really my cup of tea. Second, when you dock your iPhone, unless the display mode is set to the brightest setting, an error message displays on your phone (saying that the device is not compatible), then disappears, then reappears, then disappears, etc. in an infinite loop. You have to set the clock to the brightest setting, dock your phone, then change the display back to the desired brightness. The whole process is ridiculously tedious. Third, there have been two occasions when the clock simply freezes and crashes (note: I've only had the clock for a little over a month). The only way to get it operational again is to unplug it, wait about 30 seconds, then plug it back in. (Luckily, it auto-sets the time, so you don't have to worry about performing setup again.) Lastly, there are times in the middle of the night (when my phone is docked) where the display on my phone lights up for no apparent reason and asks me if I'd like to enable airplane mode. The only way to fix this is to perform the steps above (i.e. undock the phone, change the brightness of the clock to max, re-dock the phone, change the brightness back to the desired setting). From what I can tell, all of the issues I'm having could be fixed with a rock-solid firmware update, and I'm hopeful that Sony is already working on the problem. I was disappointed that a clock that cost US$150.00 with the Sony brand name would have had most of the kinks worked out before being put into production. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case with this model. The bottom line is that this clock, while beautiful with great potential, is way too expensive for the problems you'll run into. UNRELIABLE. DO NOT BUY. Date: June 21, 2011 This piece of junk its absolutely unreliable. I freezes frequently and I have to unplug and plug to revive the dock. Out of 30 days, the alarm only rings 25 times. I have to keep a separate alarm clock to keep me from oversleeping. The screen layout and home menu screen is unsophisticated and not very pleasing in the looks. The sliding dock is not stable and will slide back in very easily. And absolutely not worth the money! I'm selling mine! TRUST ME, DON'T BUY IT. Cons: Doesn't work Sony was reaching a little too far with this item. An alarm clock should above all else be a good alarm clock. In trying to design this to do everything under the sun - Sony forgot that rule. 3 of the past 5 mornings this has failed to sound the radio to wake me. Thanks to another really annoying feature (the screen changing to full bright while in the alarm/snooze cycle) I've only woken up 15 minutes late. The screen changes to full brightness when the alarm sounds. I have to cover the screen with the owners manual after snoozing the alarm because there is no way to dim the screen while the alarm is snoozed. Please understand - this thing is really bright! I have a battery icon on the display now. I guess after 1 month of use the internal lithium battery has died. I've only had 1 instance of a lock up during the last 30 days. No Alarm - no screen - etc. I had to unplug to reset. There is no dock insert for the iPhone 4 included. I use the one that is closest but there have been several times when I've woken up to a dead iPhone because it didn't charge. I wanted to love this $150 alarm clock (who spends that kind of money on an alarm clock?). I am returning this to Costco today while I can still get my money back. A $10 Timex makes a more reliable alarm clock. It's really a shame. 5 of 5 voted this as helpful. Cons: 1. Can't remove default images 2. Alarm malfunctions/freezes/snooze malfunctions 3. Brightness issues I had thought that for the price of $150 this alarm clock would be TOP NOTCH. The best way to sum it up is it's a $20 alarm clock and a $130 digital picture frame. Every pro has a con on this device. 1. Display is beautiful and looks great BUT you need to have very particular image sizes for it to look that good. 2. Alarm is good - very easy to change times - has a loud increasing buzzer - has dual alarms BUT alarm has failed to turn on twice (alarm clock was just frozen, I had to unplug the device) the snooze button has malfunctioned (sometimes it just doesn't snooze and you're forced to shut off the alarm) 3. Clock has 4 brightness modes which are great for viewing or sleeping BUT there is no support to automatically dim (for instance at certain times of the day change to sleep) you must ALWAYS press the snooze button to change brightness - I thought for $150 it would at least have an ambient light sensor and automatically adjust the brightness 4. There's NO WAY to delete the default images. Right now I'm staring at some blonde haired child that is not mine, and I don't want to see him. I will later see a stupid duck. Yes the colors and quality are nice, but I don't want to see the default images - That's like buying a picture frame at the store and always keeping the stranger's promotional photo. 5. There is limited function in the way you can display your images - it's not random, it just goes to the next file number. The list can go on and on. The bottom line is that this is ONLY a beautiful expensive gadget on my night stand. I made an unfortunate mistake purchasing this item as I assumed that given the hefty price, it would be a premium, even epic, item. The bottom line is it's a mediocre alarm clock with a mediocre picture frame, with a mediocre iPod Dock. I guess that's
what I get when I pre-order a product and don't wait for the reviews to come in first. Cons: CANNOT DELETE SAMPLE PHOTOS Overall its a decent unit, good built quality but one if not more huge oversights. I can work around the fact that you can only upload 50 pictures at a time and there is no select all command, etc. but who in the world made the decision not allow consumers to delete sample photographs? I loaded a bunch of digital pics and when they appear in the slide show - so do Sony's "sample" pictures. Ask yourself - do you want a picture of a boy (who you don't know) along with 5 other landscape or scenery pictures scrolling right along with any pictures that you load? Pros: It seems like it will do so many cool things! Cons: It doesn't quite pull it all off. I have several major problems with this device. 1) It does not have shuffle. Sony's CD players back in the 1990s had shuffle (I owned one!). Every iPod since what, 2005 or earlier, has shuffle. But this device does not. It cannot randomly play songs from your USB or SD storage medium (or presumably, from onboard memory). 2) Lack of a shuffle function causes varying degrees of boredom with regard to music selections. For example, playing from a USB or SD device yields your files in filesystem order - not horrible, but monotonous. On the other hand, when selecting one of these devices for music to use for your alarm, you have to pick a SINGLE FILE. so you wake up to the same song every morning. Not really what I would hope for. 3) The interface is too complex and insufficiently explained. While you can turn off the built-in images (others here have complained you can't), it is, for example, fairly confusing as how you start a photo slide show from a USB or SD device. It can be done, it's just. more difficult than it needed to be. 4) Finally, the built-in memory is mostly useless. To use it one must select files on other memory devices (like USB or SD, etc) one at a time. But these days people have hundreds if not thousands of mp3s and photos. so not MINIMALLY having a "select all" feature for copying is ridiculous. I for one will not take the time to select each one of my 450 favorite mp3s for transfer to the device; I doubt many others will either. [Conclusion] It is my fondest hope that, since this is a software device (i.e. updateable firmware), Sony will either correct some of these problems, or will release their firmware specs to the OSS community, who surely could improve the device considerably. But I am not interested in waiting for a device that works great, I would like one now. so I will be returning this product to the store. Better luck next time, Sony. Cons: Buggy firmware which causes random lock-ups and error messages on iPhone I bought this unit to use as an alarm clock, picture frame, and bedside charging dock. With the current bugs in this product, it really only serves as a $150 bedside dock/charger. The unit will lock up randomly, so the morning wake-up alarm does not sound (not good for those who need a reliable alarm clock for work). The picture frame locks up along with it. I have been in touch with support and they keep reading from the same script of "resets and battery removal". Nothing has worked and now Sony is asking for $96 + tax to exchange the unit. I will not be purchasing any more Sony products with this type of support. Don't be fooled by the nice-looking design. 4 of 4 voted this as helpful.
Sony Dream Machine (ICF-CL75iP) review: Is it a bird, is it a plane? Certain sections of technology lend themselves to the concept of convergence, where the mad scientists in the world's biggest tech manufacturer mix together the coolest gadgets to make even cooler gadgets — think smartphones. But what would happen if you mixed together three seemingly boring gadgets, say an alarm clock, an iPod dock and a digital photo frame? Cue the Sony Dream Machine (and Corey Haim is nowhere in sight). The result is surprisingly sexy, or at least as sexy as an alarm clock ought to be. The centrepiece of the Dream Machine is a 7-inch colour LCD display with a pretty standard WVGA. When viewing videos or photo slideshows the results are colourful and reasonably sharp, and seeing as it's to live on your bedside table it has four brightness settings to dim the screen when its time to sleep.
Rock around the clock, dock The Dream Machine can play media from four main sources: from its 1GB of internal memory, a USB connection to a PC or portable storage, an SD or M2 memory card, or from the media stored on your Apple iPhone or iPod, though unfortunately there is no 3.5mm socket for connecting any other brand of MP3 player (even a Sony). Apple products connect via a slide-out dock located on the right-hand side of the Dream Machine, and there are two plastic cradles to secure your iPhone in the dock correctly. While having an iPod dock is a huge bonus for a product of this kind it does come with the most inconsistencies. Firstly, you can't start video or image files using the Dream Machine's control panel, instead you have to set the player into iPod video mode then start playback from the handset itself. You can control the iPod player's music controls using the buttons on the dock and can set music on your iPod as your alarm clock music. You also can't transfer files from the iPhone/iPod to the internal memory, though considering how tightly Apple control these aspects of its products we really shouldn't be too surprised. The speaker in the Dream Machine is adequate for the job, especially if you plan to watch videos or listen to music close to
the unit, as in with your head on your pillow and the Dream Machine an arm's length away. It also features AM/FM radio tuner, which all good alarm clocks should. If you don't feel like being woken up to your heavy metal collection you can record a "Fun Wakeup" (which sounds like an oxymoron to us). You choose a photo from your collection and marry it with a voice recording and create your own custom wake-up call. The Dream Machine supports a range of media file types including MP3 and WMA audio and MPEG4, AVI and MOV video files.
Overall We have a few nitpicks and grumblings, but overall the Dream Machine is a happy marriage of a few popular electronic appliances. There are features missing that you might expect if you bought one of these appliances as a stand-alone, like Bluetooth or internet connectivity in a digital photo frame, but we feel that the combination of functionality makes up for the shortcomings of each of its parts.
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Product Reviews ICF-CL75iP Posted November 25, 2011 UPDATE: sad to report, but this finely cosmentically and functionally conceived clock radio is simply unreliable, even with 1.10 firmware which I applied 7 days ago on the date of purchase. During the past 6 days each alarm has failed to activate the iPod once, and neither alarm resumes after snoozing. Sony, a clock radio has to provide reliable alarms- jobs depend on it! 0 of 0 voted this comment as helpful. Read comment ( 1 ) Review 22 for ICF-CL75iP From: San Francisco, CA I've had this product for: 1-3 months Share This Review
Beautiful, but Extremely Buggy Date: January 31, 2010 Pros: absolutely beautiful display, great user interface, low-light night mode, iPhone connectivity Cons: expensive, *tons* of software bugs First, let me give credit where credit is due - this clock is absolutely beautiful. The large, color-rich display is stunning, and the user interface for navigating the expansive menu options was very well executed. Kudos to Sony's design team. The clock also has some very nice features, such as being basically a mini media center, multiple display modes, and its lowlight night mode is perfect for people who don't like a lot of ambient light when they sleep. However, there are a lot of very annoying problems with this model. First, as people have mentioned, you cannot delete the stock photos from the gallery. This wouldn't even be such a huge problem if the clock would at least remember what photo you've chosen as your background wallpaper. Every time I dock my iPhone, or the alarm goes off, or some other seemingly innocuous activity occurs, the photo resets to the pink flower, which is not really my cup of tea. Second, when you dock your iPhone, unless the display mode is set to the brightest setting, an error message displays on your phone (saying that the device is not compatible), then disappears, then reappears, then disappears, etc. in an infinite loop. You have to set the clock to the brightest setting, dock your phone, then change the display back to the desired brightness. The whole process is ridiculously tedious. Third, there have been two occasions when the clock simply freezes and crashes (note: I've only had the clock for a little over a month). The only way to get it operational again is to unplug it, wait about 30 seconds, then plug it back in. (Luckily, it auto-sets the time, so you don't have to worry about performing setup again.)
Lastly, there are times in the middle of the night (when my phone is docked) where the display on my phone lights up for no apparent reason and asks me if I'd like to enable airplane mode. The only way to fix this is to perform the steps above (i.e. undock the phone, change the brightness of the clock to max, re-dock the phone, change the brightness back to the desired setting). From what I can tell, all of the issues I'm having could be fixed with a rock-solid firmware update, and I'm hopeful that Sony is already working on the problem. I was disappointed that a clock that cost US$150.00 with the Sony brand name would have had most of the kinks worked out before being put into production. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case with this model. The bottom line is that this clock, while beautiful with great potential, is way too expensive for the problems you'll run into. UNRELIABLE. DO NOT BUY. Date: June 21, 2011 This piece of junk its absolutely unreliable. I freezes frequently and I have to unplug and plug to revive the dock. Out of 30 days, the alarm only rings 25 times. I have to keep a separate alarm clock to keep me from oversleeping. The screen layout and home menu screen is unsophisticated and not very pleasing in the looks. The sliding dock is not stable and will slide back in very easily. And absolutely not worth the money! I'm selling mine! TRUST ME, DON'T BUY IT. Cons: Doesn't work Sony was reaching a little too far with this item. An alarm clock should above all else be a good alarm clock. In trying to design this to do everything under the sun - Sony forgot that rule. 3 of the past 5 mornings this has failed to sound the radio to wake me. Thanks to another really annoying feature (the screen changing to full bright while in the alarm/snooze cycle) I've only woken up 15 minutes late. The screen changes to full brightness when the alarm sounds. I have to cover the screen with the owners manual after snoozing the alarm because there is no way to dim the screen while the alarm is snoozed. Please understand - this thing is really bright! I have a battery icon on the display now. I guess after 1 month of use the internal lithium battery has died. I've only had 1 instance of a lock up during the last 30 days. No Alarm - no screen - etc. I had to unplug to reset. There is no dock insert for the iPhone 4 included. I use the one that is closest but there have been several times when I've woken up to a dead iPhone because it didn't charge. I wanted to love this $150 alarm clock (who spends that kind of money on an alarm clock?). I am returning this to Costco today while I can still get my money back. A $10 Timex makes a more reliable alarm clock. It's really a shame. 5 of 5 voted this as helpful. Cons: 1. Can't remove default images 2. Alarm malfunctions/freezes/snooze malfunctions 3. Brightness issues I had thought that for the price of $150 this alarm clock would be TOP NOTCH. The best way to sum it up is it's a $20 alarm clock and a $130 digital picture frame. Every pro has a con on this device. 1. Display is beautiful and looks great BUT you need to have very particular image sizes for it to look that good. 2. Alarm is good - very easy to change times - has a loud increasing buzzer - has dual alarms BUT alarm has failed to turn on twice (alarm clock was just frozen, I had to unplug the device) the snooze button has malfunctioned (sometimes it just doesn't snooze and you're forced to shut off the alarm) 3. Clock has 4 brightness modes which are great for viewing or sleeping BUT there is no support to automatically dim (for instance at certain times of the day change to sleep) you must ALWAYS press the snooze button to change brightness - I thought for $150 it would at least have an ambient light sensor and automatically adjust the brightness 4. There's NO WAY to delete the default images. Right now I'm staring at some blonde haired child that is not mine, and I don't want to see him. I will later see a stupid duck. Yes the colors and quality are nice, but I don't want to see the default images - That's like buying a picture frame at the store and always keeping the stranger's promotional photo. 5. There is limited function in the way you can display your images - it's not random, it just goes to the next file number. The list can go on and on. The bottom line is that this is ONLY a beautiful expensive gadget on my night stand. I made an unfortunate mistake purchasing this item as I assumed that given the hefty price, it would be a premium, even epic, item. The bottom line is it's a mediocre alarm clock with a mediocre picture frame, with a mediocre iPod Dock. I guess that's what I get when I pre-order a product and don't wait for the reviews to come in first. Cons: CANNOT DELETE SAMPLE PHOTOS Overall its a decent unit, good built quality but one if not more huge oversights. I can work around the fact that you can only upload 50 pictures at a time and there is no select all command, etc. but who in the world made the decision not allow consumers to delete sample photographs? I loaded a bunch of digital pics and when they appear in the slide show - so do Sony's "sample" pictures. Ask yourself - do you want a picture of a boy (who you don't know) along with 5 other landscape or scenery pictures scrolling right along with any pictures that you load? Pros: It seems like it will do so many cool things! Cons: It doesn't quite pull it all off. I have several major problems with this device. 1) It does not have shuffle. Sony's CD players back in the 1990s had
shuffle (I owned one!). Every iPod since what, 2005 or earlier, has shuffle. But this device does not. It cannot randomly play songs from your USB or SD storage medium (or presumably, from onboard memory). 2) Lack of a shuffle function causes varying degrees of boredom with regard to music selections. For example, playing from a USB or SD device yields your files in filesystem order - not horrible, but monotonous. On the other hand, when selecting one of these devices for music to use for your alarm, you have to pick a SINGLE FILE. so you wake up to the same song every morning. Not really what I would hope for. 3) The interface is too complex and insufficiently explained. While you can turn off the built-in images (others here have complained you can't), it is, for example, fairly confusing as how you start a photo slide show from a USB or SD device. It can be done, it's just. more difficult than it needed to be. 4) Finally, the built-in memory is mostly useless. To use it one must select files on other memory devices (like USB or SD, etc) one at a time. But these days people have hundreds if not thousands of mp3s and photos. so not MINIMALLY having a "select all" feature for copying is ridiculous. I for one will not take the time to select each one of my 450 favorite mp3s for transfer to the device; I doubt many others will either. [Conclusion] It is my fondest hope that, since this is a software device (i.e. updateable firmware), Sony will either correct some of these problems, or will release their firmware specs to the OSS community, who surely could improve the device considerably. But I am not interested in waiting for a device that works great, I would like one now. so I will be returning this product to the store. Better luck next time, Sony. Cons: Buggy firmware which causes random lock-ups and error messages on iPhone I bought this unit to use as an alarm clock, picture frame, and bedside charging dock. With the current bugs in this product, it really only serves as a $150 bedside dock/charger. The unit will lock up randomly, so the morning wake-up alarm does not sound (not good for those who need a reliable alarm clock for work). The picture frame locks up along with it. I have been in touch with support and they keep reading from the same script of "resets and battery removal". Nothing has worked and now Sony is asking for $96 + tax to exchange the unit. I will not be purchasing any more Sony products with this type of support. Don't be fooled by the nice-looking design. 4 of 4 voted this as helpful.
Saving Old Voices by Dumping ROMs Some people collect stamps. Others collect porcelain miniatures. [David Viens] collects voice synthesizers and their ROMs. In this video, he just got his hands on the ultra-rare Electronic Voice Alert (EVA) from early 1980s Chrysler automobiles (video embedded below the break). Back in the 1980s, speech synthesis was in its golden years following the development of TI’s linear-predictive coding speech chips. These are the bits of silicon that gave voice to the Speak and Spell, numerous video game machines, and the TI 99/4A computer’s speech module. And, apparently, some models of Chrysler cars. The board appears to have a socket for a TMS-series voice synthesizer chip and another slot for the ROM. It looks like an FTDI 2232 USB-serial converter is being used in bit-bang mode with some custom code driving everything, and presumably sniffing data in the middle. We’d love to see a bunch more detail. The best part of the video, aside from the ROM-dumping goodness, comes at the end when [David] tosses the ROM’s contents into his own chipspeech emulator and starts playing “your engine oil pressure is critical” up and down the keyboard. Fantastic. Thanks [William] for the tip!
Post navigation 37 thoughts on “ Saving Old Voices by Dumping ROMs ” This is a lot of fun, particularly the keyboard manipulation. I hope I’m not dating myself too much by saying that the original versions of these astoundingly annoying annunciators died a horrible death in the marketplace for a reason. (“So last century” according to my wife). Driving one of these cars was like having Harry Mudd’s android (lower-case “A”) wife in the back seat. I dunno. I’m sure it was annoying at the time, but I’d gladly take the old-school robot voice over today’s incessant beeping for no apparent (or good) reason. I’ve had numerous occasions where I’ve almost put my fist through the dashboard in a rental car because of the constant beeping when parking or when the temperature drops slightly below freezing. Honestly really, really annoying, and the obstacle avoidance systems are just plain ineffective and distracting. I don’t know if that was the real reason. The quality was lacking. We use GPS now and don’t mind them talking to us. Yes they can get annoying. Usually when they repeat a direction when you’re caught in certain circumstances. lol I did like tinkering around with some of the voice synthesizer chips. I find the GPS generally speaks too much. Usually I’m trying to talk on the phone (via the same speaker system), which does a great job of filtering out the GPS voice to the person on the other end of the line… however the GPS is usually “In 3 km, at the interchange, keep right and follow signs to A11 City, City, City” …which first really interrupts the call and takes
forever to speak, then she reminds at 2km, 1km 500m and so on. By the turn I want to smack her! And worse, because the car filters out the GPS voice when taking audio for the caller, the caller has no idea they’re being spoken over…GAH! My Aunt had a 1987 Dodge with the voice alerts. A. DOOR. IS. A. JAR. Yes, like that, with a definite pause between A and JAR. Made me wonder what kind of jar? Mason? Jam? The TI speech chips (as used in the Home Computer Speech Synthesizer) had a base voice which could ‘simply’ be fed LPC code. There are also ADSR (Attack, Delay, Sustain, Release) and other parameters that can be used to carefully craft the voice you want. It should be possible to interface one of those speech synthesizers to just about anything. They’re an input only device, output is via an analog audio line which went back to the computer console to be mixed with the computer’s analog audio out. The other way was to digitally record a voice or sounds to replicate. The recording had to be a specific bits per sample, mono etc. I don’t know what TI used originally but in the early 90’s they developed Windows 3.1 software called QBox Pro. Download it and a DLL it requires here http://atariage.com/forums/topic/153704-ti-994a-development-resources/ That analyzes the audio and creates LPC data to feed to the synthesizer to use to replicate the original audio. Other 1980’s microcomputers and game consoles used digitized audio directly. The Odyssey^2 voice module contained a set of prerecorded words and some phonemes to construct words not in its vocabulary. The IntelliVoice module was just a DAC, reading digitized sound samples in the cartridge ROMs when commanded by the game code. The IBM PCjr had an optional speech module which used the TI speech chip (its built in tone/noise chip was also the same as in TI’s computer) but IBM’s implementation was nowhere as good as TI’s so very little PC Jr software used speech. It took this video for me to realize how dead, dead, dead talking cars were. Another thing to look for at Pull-A-Part. I laughed so hard at the keyboard sample–three hundred dollars to buy this, and a homemade jig to read it. Just because. Yep, he’s one of us.
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Product Reviews ICF-CL75iP Posted November 25, 2011 UPDATE: sad to report, but this finely cosmentically and functionally conceived clock radio is simply unreliable, even with 1.10 firmware which I applied 7 days ago on the date of purchase. During the past 6 days each alarm has failed to activate the iPod once, and neither alarm resumes after snoozing. Sony, a clock radio has to provide reliable alarms- jobs depend on it! 0 of 0 voted this comment as helpful. Read comment ( 1 ) Review 22 for ICF-CL75iP From: San Francisco, CA I've had this product for: 1-3 months Share This Review
Beautiful, but Extremely Buggy Date: January 31, 2010 Pros: absolutely beautiful display, great user interface, low-light night mode, iPhone connectivity Cons: expensive, *tons* of software bugs First, let me give credit where credit is due - this clock is absolutely beautiful. The large, color-rich display is stunning, and the user interface for navigating the expansive menu options was very well executed. Kudos to Sony's design team. The clock also has some very nice features, such as being basically a mini media center, multiple display modes, and its lowlight night mode is perfect for people who don't like a lot of ambient light when they sleep. However, there are a lot of very annoying problems with this model. First, as people have mentioned, you cannot delete the stock photos from the gallery. This wouldn't even be such a huge problem if the clock would at least remember what photo you've chosen as your background wallpaper. Every time I dock my iPhone, or the alarm goes off, or some other seemingly innocuous activity occurs, the photo resets to the pink flower, which is not really my cup of tea. Second, when you dock your iPhone, unless the display mode is set to the brightest setting, an error message displays on your phone (saying that the device is not compatible), then disappears, then reappears, then disappears, etc. in an infinite loop. You have to set the clock to the brightest setting, dock your phone, then change the display back to the desired brightness. The whole process is ridiculously tedious. Third, there have been two occasions when the clock simply freezes and crashes (note: I've only had the clock for a little over a month). The only way to get it operational again is to unplug it, wait about 30 seconds, then plug it back in. (Luckily, it auto-sets the time, so you don't have to worry about performing setup again.) Lastly, there are times in the middle of the night (when my phone is docked) where the display on my phone lights up for no apparent reason and asks me if I'd like to enable airplane mode. The only way to fix this is to perform the steps above (i.e. undock the phone, change the brightness of the clock to max, re-dock the phone, change the brightness back to the desired setting). From what I can tell, all of the issues I'm having could be fixed with a rock-solid firmware update, and I'm hopeful that
Sony is already working on the problem. I was disappointed that a clock that cost US$150.00 with the Sony brand name would have had most of the kinks worked out before being put into production. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case with this model. The bottom line is that this clock, while beautiful with great potential, is way too expensive for the problems you'll run into. UNRELIABLE. DO NOT BUY. Date: June 21, 2011 This piece of junk its absolutely unreliable. I freezes frequently and I have to unplug and plug to revive the dock. Out of 30 days, the alarm only rings 25 times. I have to keep a separate alarm clock to keep me from oversleeping. The screen layout and home menu screen is unsophisticated and not very pleasing in the looks. The sliding dock is not stable and will slide back in very easily. And absolutely not worth the money! I'm selling mine! TRUST ME, DON'T BUY IT. Cons: Doesn't work Sony was reaching a little too far with this item. An alarm clock should above all else be a good alarm clock. In trying to design this to do everything under the sun - Sony forgot that rule. 3 of the past 5 mornings this has failed to sound the radio to wake me. Thanks to another really annoying feature (the screen changing to full bright while in the alarm/snooze cycle) I've only woken up 15 minutes late. The screen changes to full brightness when the alarm sounds. I have to cover the screen with the owners manual after snoozing the alarm because there is no way to dim the screen while the alarm is snoozed. Please understand - this thing is really bright! I have a battery icon on the display now. I guess after 1 month of use the internal lithium battery has died. I've only had 1 instance of a lock up during the last 30 days. No Alarm - no screen - etc. I had to unplug to reset. There is no dock insert for the iPhone 4 included. I use the one that is closest but there have been several times when I've woken up to a dead iPhone because it didn't charge. I wanted to love this $150 alarm clock (who spends that kind of money on an alarm clock?). I am returning this to Costco today while I can still get my money back. A $10 Timex makes a more reliable alarm clock. It's really a shame. 5 of 5 voted this as helpful. Cons: 1. Can't remove default images 2. Alarm malfunctions/freezes/snooze malfunctions 3. Brightness issues I had thought that for the price of $150 this alarm clock would be TOP NOTCH. The best way to sum it up is it's a $20 alarm clock and a $130 digital picture frame. Every pro has a con on this device. 1. Display is beautiful and looks great BUT you need to have very particular image sizes for it to look that good. 2. Alarm is good - very easy to change times - has a loud increasing buzzer - has dual alarms BUT alarm has failed to turn on twice (alarm clock was just frozen, I had to unplug the device) the snooze button has malfunctioned (sometimes it just doesn't snooze and you're forced to shut off the alarm) 3. Clock has 4 brightness modes which are great for viewing or sleeping BUT there is no support to automatically dim (for instance at certain times of the day change to sleep) you must ALWAYS press the snooze button to change brightness - I thought for $150 it would at least have an ambient light sensor and automatically adjust the brightness 4. There's NO WAY to delete the default images. Right now I'm staring at some blonde haired child that is not mine, and I don't want to see him. I will later see a stupid duck. Yes the colors and quality are nice, but I don't want to see the default images - That's like buying a picture frame at the store and always keeping the stranger's promotional photo. 5. There is limited function in the way you can display your images - it's not random, it just goes to the next file number. The list can go on and on. The bottom line is that this is ONLY a beautiful expensive gadget on my night stand. I made an unfortunate mistake purchasing this item as I assumed that given the hefty price, it would be a premium, even epic, item. The bottom line is it's a mediocre alarm clock with a mediocre picture frame, with a mediocre iPod Dock. I guess that's what I get when I pre-order a product and don't wait for the reviews to come in first. Cons: CANNOT DELETE SAMPLE PHOTOS Overall its a decent unit, good built quality but one if not more huge oversights. I can work around the fact that you can only upload 50 pictures at a time and there is no select all command, etc. but who in the world made the decision not allow consumers to delete sample photographs? I loaded a bunch of digital pics and when they appear in the slide show - so do Sony's "sample" pictures. Ask yourself - do you want a picture of a boy (who you don't know) along with 5 other landscape or scenery pictures scrolling right along with any pictures that you load? Pros: It seems like it will do so many cool things! Cons: It doesn't quite pull it all off. I have several major problems with this device. 1) It does not have shuffle. Sony's CD players back in the 1990s had shuffle (I owned one!). Every iPod since what, 2005 or earlier, has shuffle. But this device does not. It cannot randomly play songs from your USB or SD storage medium (or presumably, from onboard memory). 2) Lack of a shuffle function causes varying degrees of boredom with regard to music selections. For example, playing from a USB or SD device yields your files in filesystem order - not horrible, but monotonous. On the other hand, when selecting one of these devices for music to use for your alarm, you have to pick a SINGLE FILE. so you wake up to the same song every morning. Not really
what I would hope for. 3) The interface is too complex and insufficiently explained. While you can turn off the built-in images (others here have complained you can't), it is, for example, fairly confusing as how you start a photo slide show from a USB or SD device. It can be done, it's just. more difficult than it needed to be. 4) Finally, the built-in memory is mostly useless. To use it one must select files on other memory devices (like USB or SD, etc) one at a time. But these days people have hundreds if not thousands of mp3s and photos. so not MINIMALLY having a "select all" feature for copying is ridiculous. I for one will not take the time to select each one of my 450 favorite mp3s for transfer to the device; I doubt many others will either. [Conclusion] It is my fondest hope that, since this is a software device (i.e. updateable firmware), Sony will either correct some of these problems, or will release their firmware specs to the OSS community, who surely could improve the device considerably. But I am not interested in waiting for a device that works great, I would like one now. so I will be returning this product to the store. Better luck next time, Sony. Cons: Buggy firmware which causes random lock-ups and error messages on iPhone I bought this unit to use as an alarm clock, picture frame, and bedside charging dock. With the current bugs in this product, it really only serves as a $150 bedside dock/charger. The unit will lock up randomly, so the morning wake-up alarm does not sound (not good for those who need a reliable alarm clock for work). The picture frame locks up along with it. I have been in touch with support and they keep reading from the same script of "resets and battery removal". Nothing has worked and now Sony is asking for $96 + tax to exchange the unit. I will not be purchasing any more Sony products with this type of support. Don't be fooled by the nice-looking design. 4 of 4 voted this as helpful.
Disclaimer Softwares en online toepassingen: beperkingen en disclaimers Alle stuurprogramma's, software, programma's (inclusief alle upgrades en updates), browserinvoegtoepassingen, randapparatuur en andere toepassingen, computergebaseerde diensten of hulpprogramma's, alle software die aan gebruikers beschikbaar wordt gesteld in verband met of om toegang te faciliteren tot, elk abonnement dat gerelateerd is aan deze site en alle bestanden en afbeeldingen die ingesloten zijn in of gegenereerd worden door software, programma's en andere materialen die beschikbaar zijn als of als externe toepassing of dienst van de inhoud van de site (hulpprogramma's) worden verstrekt met als doel de ondersteuning van en dienstverlening aan gebruikers. Eigendom van hulpprogramma's (al dan niet ge) wordt niet overgedragen aan gebruikers en blijft bezit (met betrekking tot alle hierin besloten intellectuele eigendomsrechten) van Sony, partners van Sony of de desbetreffende licentiegevers. Het gebruik van elk hulpprogramma door de gebruiker is onderhevig aan de voorwaarden van alle online en offline documenten, de licentie voor de eindgebruiker of andere relevante overeenkomsten en algemene voorwaarden die worden aangegeven door de desbetreffende leverancier of licentiegever (EULA, licentieovereenkomst voor eindgebruikers) (in geval van discrepantie tussen deze voorwaarden wordt aan de licentieovereenkomst een zwaarder belang toegekend dan aan deze voorwaarden). Indien een hulpprogramma niet met een EULA wordt geleverd, wordt het hulpprogramma aan u in licentie gegeven voor één gebruiker. Deze licentie is niet overdraagbaar, niet-exclusief en herroepbaar. Hulpprogramma's mogen alleen worden gebruikt zoals beschreven in de desbetreffende EULA. De gebruiker heeft geen toestemming om hulpprogramma's te reproduceren, kopiëren, verhuren, leasen, decompileren, verkopen of uit elkaar te halen, met uitzondering van eventuele toestemming die nadrukkelijk wordt verleend door de EULA of geldende wetgeving. Onrechtmatig gebruik van hulpprogramma's is in strijd met de auteursrechten en andere rechten op intellectueel eigendom. Sony of de desbetreffende licentiegever (waar van toepassing) behoudt zich alle rechten voor. Sony geeft geen garantie met betrekking tot de nauwkeurigheid of betrouwbaarheid van de resultaten of de output die afkomstig is van het gebruik van hulpprogramma's. Sony aanvaardt geen verantwoordelijkheid voor gegevensverlies of schade die ontstaat door de installatie of het gebruik van een van de gee hulpprogramma's, verleent verder geen garantie en aanvaardt geen enkele aansprakelijkheid met betrekking tot hulpprogramma's. Sony adviseert gebruikers (en gebruikers verklaren dit advies na te zullen leven) om altijd een kopie van alle gegevens te maken en bewaren op hardware (waarmee of waarop hulpprogramma's zullen worden geïnstalleerd of gebruikt) voordat een hulpprogramma wordt geïnstalleerd of gebruikt. Sony en partners van Sony bieden geen ondersteuning of hulp (behalve indien nadrukkelijk vermeld in een desbetreffende EULA) bij het gebruik, de installatie of het onderhoud van hulpprogramma's of bij het oplossen van fouten of problemen die zich kunnen voordoen als gevolg van het gebruik of de installatie van hulpprogramma's. U erkent dat de hulpprogramma's en eventuele bijbehorende documentatie en/of technische gegevens onderhevig kunnen zijn aan geldende wetgeving en reglementen inzake exportbeperkingen. U verklaart dat u de hulpprogramma's niet zult exporteren of voor wederuitvoer zult aanbieden, noch direct, noch indirect, indien dat een inbreuk vormt op dergelijke wetgeving en reglementen. Indien Sony (schriftelijk) instemt met het bieden van technische ondersteuning voor een product van Sony, wordt deze ondersteuning alleen geboden voor de desbetreffende producten van Sony in combinatie met besturingssystemen en andere software die gelijk is aan de software waarmee het product werd geleverd vanuit de fabriek van Sony of de partner van Sony. Sony behoudt zich het recht voor om geen ondersteuning te bieden voor producten van Sony waarop achteraf hulpprogramma's zijn aangebracht of geladen. Geldende EULA's kunnen aanvullende uitsluitingen of beperkingen van de garantie en aansprakelijkheid voor hulpprogramma's opleggen. Door een hulpprogramma te en, verklaart u in te stemmen met deze voorwaarden. Indien u niet akkoord gaat met deze voorwaarden, mag u geen hulpprogramma of bijbehorende online documentatie en. Help ons om onze ondersteuning te verbeteren
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Product Reviews ICF-CL75iP Posted November 25, 2011 UPDATE: sad to report, but this finely cosmentically and functionally conceived clock radio is simply unreliable, even with 1.10 firmware which I applied 7 days ago on the date of purchase. During the past 6 days each alarm has failed to activate the iPod once, and neither alarm resumes after snoozing. Sony, a clock radio has to provide reliable alarms- jobs depend on it! 0 of 0 voted this comment as helpful. Read comment ( 1 ) Review 22 for ICF-CL75iP From: San Francisco, CA I've had this product for: 1-3 months Share This Review
Beautiful, but Extremely Buggy Date: January 31, 2010 Pros: absolutely beautiful display, great user interface, low-light night mode, iPhone connectivity Cons: expensive, *tons* of software bugs First, let me give credit where credit is due - this clock is absolutely beautiful. The large, color-rich display is stunning, and the user interface for navigating the expansive menu options was very well executed. Kudos to Sony's design team. The clock also has some very nice features, such as being basically a mini media center, multiple display modes, and its lowlight night mode is perfect for people who don't like a lot of ambient light when they sleep.
However, there are a lot of very annoying problems with this model. First, as people have mentioned, you cannot delete the stock photos from the gallery. This wouldn't even be such a huge problem if the clock would at least remember what photo you've chosen as your background wallpaper. Every time I dock my iPhone, or the alarm goes off, or some other seemingly innocuous activity occurs, the photo resets to the pink flower, which is not really my cup of tea. Second, when you dock your iPhone, unless the display mode is set to the brightest setting, an error message displays on your phone (saying that the device is not compatible), then disappears, then reappears, then disappears, etc. in an infinite loop. You have to set the clock to the brightest setting, dock your phone, then change the display back to the desired brightness. The whole process is ridiculously tedious. Third, there have been two occasions when the clock simply freezes and crashes (note: I've only had the clock for a little over a month). The only way to get it operational again is to unplug it, wait about 30 seconds, then plug it back in. (Luckily, it auto-sets the time, so you don't have to worry about performing setup again.) Lastly, there are times in the middle of the night (when my phone is docked) where the display on my phone lights up for no apparent reason and asks me if I'd like to enable airplane mode. The only way to fix this is to perform the steps above (i.e. undock the phone, change the brightness of the clock to max, re-dock the phone, change the brightness back to the desired setting). From what I can tell, all of the issues I'm having could be fixed with a rock-solid firmware update, and I'm hopeful that Sony is already working on the problem. I was disappointed that a clock that cost US$150.00 with the Sony brand name would have had most of the kinks worked out before being put into production. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case with this model. The bottom line is that this clock, while beautiful with great potential, is way too expensive for the problems you'll run into. UNRELIABLE. DO NOT BUY. Date: June 21, 2011 This piece of junk its absolutely unreliable. I freezes frequently and I have to unplug and plug to revive the dock. Out of 30 days, the alarm only rings 25 times. I have to keep a separate alarm clock to keep me from oversleeping. The screen layout and home menu screen is unsophisticated and not very pleasing in the looks. The sliding dock is not stable and will slide back in very easily. And absolutely not worth the money! I'm selling mine! TRUST ME, DON'T BUY IT. Cons: Doesn't work Sony was reaching a little too far with this item. An alarm clock should above all else be a good alarm clock. In trying to design this to do everything under the sun - Sony forgot that rule. 3 of the past 5 mornings this has failed to sound the radio to wake me. Thanks to another really annoying feature (the screen changing to full bright while in the alarm/snooze cycle) I've only woken up 15 minutes late. The screen changes to full brightness when the alarm sounds. I have to cover the screen with the owners manual after snoozing the alarm because there is no way to dim the screen while the alarm is snoozed. Please understand - this thing is really bright! I have a battery icon on the display now. I guess after 1 month of use the internal lithium battery has died. I've only had 1 instance of a lock up during the last 30 days. No Alarm - no screen - etc. I had to unplug to reset. There is no dock insert for the iPhone 4 included. I use the one that is closest but there have been several times when I've woken up to a dead iPhone because it didn't charge. I wanted to love this $150 alarm clock (who spends that kind of money on an alarm clock?). I am returning this to Costco today while I can still get my money back. A $10 Timex makes a more reliable alarm clock. It's really a shame. 5 of 5 voted this as helpful. Cons: 1. Can't remove default images 2. Alarm malfunctions/freezes/snooze malfunctions 3. Brightness issues I had thought that for the price of $150 this alarm clock would be TOP NOTCH. The best way to sum it up is it's a $20 alarm clock and a $130 digital picture frame. Every pro has a con on this device. 1. Display is beautiful and looks great BUT you need to have very particular image sizes for it to look that good. 2. Alarm is good - very easy to change times - has a loud increasing buzzer - has dual alarms BUT alarm has failed to turn on twice (alarm clock was just frozen, I had to unplug the device) the snooze button has malfunctioned (sometimes it just doesn't snooze and you're forced to shut off the alarm) 3. Clock has 4 brightness modes which are great for viewing or sleeping BUT there is no support to automatically dim (for instance at certain times of the day change to sleep) you must ALWAYS press the snooze button to change brightness - I thought for $150 it would at least have an ambient light sensor and automatically adjust the brightness 4. There's NO WAY to delete the default images. Right now I'm staring at some blonde haired child that is not mine, and I don't want to see him. I will later see a stupid duck. Yes the colors and quality are nice, but I don't want to see the default images - That's like buying a picture frame at the store and always keeping the stranger's promotional photo. 5. There is limited function in the way you can display your images - it's not random, it just goes to the next file number. The list can go on and on. The bottom line is that this is ONLY a beautiful expensive gadget on my night stand. I made an unfortunate mistake purchasing this item as I assumed that given the hefty price, it would be a premium, even epic, item. The bottom line is it's a mediocre alarm clock with a mediocre picture frame, with a mediocre iPod Dock. I guess that's
what I get when I pre-order a product and don't wait for the reviews to come in first. Cons: CANNOT DELETE SAMPLE PHOTOS Overall its a decent unit, good built quality but one if not more huge oversights. I can work around the fact that you can only upload 50 pictures at a time and there is no select all command, etc. but who in the world made the decision not allow consumers to delete sample photographs? I loaded a bunch of digital pics and when they appear in the slide show - so do Sony's "sample" pictures. Ask yourself - do you want a picture of a boy (who you don't know) along with 5 other landscape or scenery pictures scrolling right along with any pictures that you load? Pros: It seems like it will do so many cool things! Cons: It doesn't quite pull it all off. I have several major problems with this device. 1) It does not have shuffle. Sony's CD players back in the 1990s had shuffle (I owned one!). Every iPod since what, 2005 or earlier, has shuffle. But this device does not. It cannot randomly play songs from your USB or SD storage medium (or presumably, from onboard memory). 2) Lack of a shuffle function causes varying degrees of boredom with regard to music selections. For example, playing from a USB or SD device yields your files in filesystem order - not horrible, but monotonous. On the other hand, when selecting one of these devices for music to use for your alarm, you have to pick a SINGLE FILE. so you wake up to the same song every morning. Not really what I would hope for. 3) The interface is too complex and insufficiently explained. While you can turn off the built-in images (others here have complained you can't), it is, for example, fairly confusing as how you start a photo slide show from a USB or SD device. It can be done, it's just. more difficult than it needed to be. 4) Finally, the built-in memory is mostly useless. To use it one must select files on other memory devices (like USB or SD, etc) one at a time. But these days people have hundreds if not thousands of mp3s and photos. so not MINIMALLY having a "select all" feature for copying is ridiculous. I for one will not take the time to select each one of my 450 favorite mp3s for transfer to the device; I doubt many others will either. [Conclusion] It is my fondest hope that, since this is a software device (i.e. updateable firmware), Sony will either correct some of these problems, or will release their firmware specs to the OSS community, who surely could improve the device considerably. But I am not interested in waiting for a device that works great, I would like one now. so I will be returning this product to the store. Better luck next time, Sony. Cons: Buggy firmware which causes random lock-ups and error messages on iPhone I bought this unit to use as an alarm clock, picture frame, and bedside charging dock. With the current bugs in this product, it really only serves as a $150 bedside dock/charger. The unit will lock up randomly, so the morning wake-up alarm does not sound (not good for those who need a reliable alarm clock for work). The picture frame locks up along with it. I have been in touch with support and they keep reading from the same script of "resets and battery removal". Nothing has worked and now Sony is asking for $96 + tax to exchange the unit. I will not be purchasing any more Sony products with this type of support. Don't be fooled by the nice-looking design. 4 of 4 voted this as helpful.
