Philips Clock Radio with Digital Photo Display
Philips
- AJL308
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Reviews
(7)
0
This device is a snazzy digital picture frame with some excellent features, but DO NOT BE FOOLED. It is NOT an MP3 alarm clock. It has alarm clock features to wake you up to the FM tuner (no AM) or to some pre-set sounds (mostly nature soothers). The packaging is somewhat misleading, and the store I found it in placed it with the alarm clocks and implied that it could wake you to any MP3 or WMA file placed onto an SD card. It is NOT the case.
That being said, when viewed as a digital picture frame, the device is quite nice. It has both a slideshow feature and a clock feature which will show you the date and time while it displays photos singly or in a loop. It has nice speakers for playing MP3s with or without a photo slideshow, and allegedly it can handle DIVX and MP4 videos (I have not made it work with one yet). The unit is stylish and far more at home on a work desk or well-kept home than most digital picture frames. Be aware, however, that to use some functions the files must
That being said, when viewed as a digital picture frame, the device is quite nice. It has both a slideshow feature and a clock feature which will show you the date and time while it displays photos singly or in a loop. It has nice speakers for playing MP3s with or without a photo slideshow, and allegedly it can handle DIVX and MP4 videos (I have not made it work with one yet). The unit is stylish and far more at home on a work desk or well-kept home than most digital picture frames. Be aware, however, that to use some functions the files must
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9 price(s)
0
I got this unit for about $49 with free shipping, and at that price point it is worth it. It is NOT worth it for the $100+ the MSRP is stated as.
The LCD has poor resolution (although all text is anti-aliased which helps slightly), and fairly limited viewing angles.
The volume control is not electronic, nor tied to a source, with some sources such as the sleep relaxation music, being substantially louder than say the MP3 and DiVX playback.
The firmware update did resolve not only the date issue, but also added expanded filename viewing, and a few other cosmetic tweaks.
Despite what the manual says, I cannot get an MPEG4 video file to play. DiVX files appear to play without any issues - though one cannot shut off the playback time or playback remaining display.
The LCD backlighting is controlled both by a big button at the top, and also by software settings that allow the display to dim to it's lowest level at a selected time, and return to bright at a selected time. The dim setting
The LCD has poor resolution (although all text is anti-aliased which helps slightly), and fairly limited viewing angles.
The volume control is not electronic, nor tied to a source, with some sources such as the sleep relaxation music, being substantially louder than say the MP3 and DiVX playback.
The firmware update did resolve not only the date issue, but also added expanded filename viewing, and a few other cosmetic tweaks.
Despite what the manual says, I cannot get an MPEG4 video file to play. DiVX files appear to play without any issues - though one cannot shut off the playback time or playback remaining display.
The LCD backlighting is controlled both by a big button at the top, and also by software settings that allow the display to dim to it's lowest level at a selected time, and return to bright at a selected time. The dim setting
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0
A previous reviewer pretty much pegged it: stylish hardware, nice screen, nothing else I've seen quite like it at this price point. But oh, where did they go to get the software??? Imagine: file names with only the first six characters displayed; no effective way to navigate among (thousands of) music or picture files; white borders on the sides of standard 4:3 ratio pictures contrasting glaringly with the glossy black frame; or, use the 16:9 screen format and just not show people's heads; no slide show in Clock mode and no way to permanently replace the default picture that someone at Philips at least seems to like; and then there's the randomizer that doesn't really seem to. The operation of the unit isn't exactly intuitive either, and the documentation doesn't cover all features. They could easily fix most of the shortcomings in a software update, but remarkably enough the Philips website doesn't have a way for you to submit suggestions or complaints (that's a 'future'). A great pity,
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0
There's much to like about this clock. For those who have not seen one in person - it's more like a digital picture frame that also shows time - very cool concept. There are only two things that I'm upset about. First - low resolution. To the point that you almost do not want to use it as a picture frame. What were they thinking??? Pictures look horrid when viewed full screen from a short distance. Another reviewer posted resolution numbers as 480 x 234 - I couldn't find any numbers in the manual, but I can't believe for $130 they didn't do better than that. Second - the background selection is only 4 colors - red, blue, green and purple. I do not like any of them. At least they could've included black background - I could live with that. All in all - I like it a lot, but the low resolution of the LCD screen is very upsetting.
0
It is a great idea, but has one fatal flaw: when displaying the clock, it cannot show a slide show for the picture by the clock.
You can use it for a slideshow frame, you can use it for an alarm clock, but you cannot use it for an alarm clock with a slideshow.
I returned it as a result of this.
You can use it for a slideshow frame, you can use it for an alarm clock, but you cannot use it for an alarm clock with a slideshow.
I returned it as a result of this.
0
There is a lot to love about this product. It's sleek. It's stylish. It's bright, bold and clear. (It can be dimmed!) It's a clock-radio with two independent alarms that also plays audio files (.mp3 and .wma), video (mpeg4 and divx codices) and photo slide shows (.jpg only). It has built-in "relaxation" sounds to help you fall asleep. It has so much going for it! And just when you think it can't get any better...
It doesn't get better. It slips a little. You start thinking to yourself, "If only..." and "Why didn't they just take the next step?" Why isn't there a tiny bit of built-in memory so that I don't need a SD card or USB stick to be attached to change the cute-but-becoming-annoying default photo? Why can't I select an audio file on the SD or USB as my alarm music? Why only three built-in sounds for the "relaxation" music? Why isn't there an AM tuner? Why isn't there a headphone jack? Why can I only display JPEG-format images? For a widescreen 7" LCD picture frame, why is the resolution
It doesn't get better. It slips a little. You start thinking to yourself, "If only..." and "Why didn't they just take the next step?" Why isn't there a tiny bit of built-in memory so that I don't need a SD card or USB stick to be attached to change the cute-but-becoming-annoying default photo? Why can't I select an audio file on the SD or USB as my alarm music? Why only three built-in sounds for the "relaxation" music? Why isn't there an AM tuner? Why isn't there a headphone jack? Why can I only display JPEG-format images? For a widescreen 7" LCD picture frame, why is the resolution
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0
Great looking product that is very easy to use. Would be 5 stars except for 1 major flaw...
When setting the date, the day display in not correct. For example, if you set the date to Sep. 10, 2007, it will display Sunday instead of Monday. Have had the same issue with 2 models now, and in store model had the same issue.
Other minor issues is that you must have a USB or SD card inserted (not included) to change the default photo the clock comes with. Not a big deal except that the USB port is on the side of the unit, so you will have an ugly USB sticking out of the clock.
When setting the date, the day display in not correct. For example, if you set the date to Sep. 10, 2007, it will display Sunday instead of Monday. Have had the same issue with 2 models now, and in store model had the same issue.
Other minor issues is that you must have a USB or SD card inserted (not included) to change the default photo the clock comes with. Not a big deal except that the USB port is on the side of the unit, so you will have an ugly USB sticking out of the clock.
