Our Alarm Bites

Your Ears Instead Will Be Welcomed By Your Favourite Ringtone, An MP3 File Of Your Choosing, Or For The Connected Model, What About An Internet Radio Station With Your Favourite Shock Jock Digitally Playing Tunes In Your Bedroom?

The standard alarm clock has definitely come a long way from being your average awakening tool nowadays, the aggravating din of metal clanging against each other is a thing of the past. Your ears instead will be welcomed by your favourite ringtone, an MP3 file of your preference, or for the connected model, how about a Net list of radio stations with your favourite shock jock digitally playing tunes in your bedroom?

That is what the Altaz Web Clock Radio offers, and I managed to spend a while with it. One thing I am able to say though if you're ever going to get to work on time, it is best not to switch alarm clocks overnite like me, possibilities are, you might not even awaken to be on time for work, as your ears have not begun to be conditioned to the new sounds. Read on about the Altaz Web Clock Radio hands-on after the jump.

But I digress. Just how did I this new gadget in the bedroom? Well, it is tough to recommend it as a "must buy", while it would make for a fascinating knick-knack to have. I'd suppose if you know of any present day luddites, getting this might be a way to warm up their toes to the consumer electronics revolution.

Seriously, your smartphone should be well placed to do what Altaz's offering does with the right app, and masses more, but if you are the type who would rather leave specific functions for dedicated devices, then it might be worth your time.

With a 3.5" touchscreen display at 320 x 240 resolution, it isn't likely to win any awards for being the nicest looking screen around, even though it does its job pretty well. Other hardware specs include MP3 playback capacity, an SD memory chip slot, 128MB of internal memory, a mini USB input, a 1-watt speaker, a JPEG spectator and Wi-Fi connectivity to get you connected.

Audio quality is decent although it isn't advised to sleep with this alarm clock too far away from your bed, otherwise a pillow covering your head might just drown the sound out during those drowsy mornings, resulting in you missing an important appointment or even worse, getting the sack for being late for the umpteenth time.

You will be able to use the touchscreen display to manipulate all of the settings inside, and sometimes the clock seems to hang but if you wait long enough (more than five minutes for me), the software did not freeze, it just took a very, really long time to sort things out, particularly when you are looking for categorical radio stations.

Setting up an inventory of radio station presets is painless, and you can also opt to do it when the Altaz Net Clock Radio is hooked up to a computer via USB if you find the touchscreen a diminutive bit hard to use.

In actual fact inputting characters through the touchscreen display was an extremely annoying experience for me no thanks to the virtual keyboard that appeared to be less than electrifying. You'd be better off hooking it up to a computer and getting the job done through a genuine keyboard as an alternative.

Setting up the Wi-Fi connection may also be quite the annoying experience entering your WPA key incorrectly would need you to remove the entire string rather than the offending character, which shouldn't occur in this time.

Aside from that, there is not any option for you to view your password in plain text as you are entering it to prevent mistakes, so practice is essential here. Hopefully a future firmware update will fix these issues. On the sunny side, firmware updates give the clock a longer product life in your house, don't you think so?

Aside from the touchscreen display, there is the play / pause button, volume control and power button at the side which are pretty much self-explanatory. A big sleep button at the very top does its job well,

The alarm clock has two default audio files to get you out of bed a crowing rooster, and that of chirping birds. Of course, you can always upload your own MP3 files to replace those, and for folks who wish to awaken to a morning Net radio station talk show, you are able to do that also.

I actually let the Altaz Web Clock Radio run for around 4 hours straight, being hooked up to my favourite Net radio station, and playing it back at fifty percent volume loudness. This is a good return, but I would recommend you just leave it plugged into a power outlet.

The requested price of $99.99 makes it hard for me to commend it to anybody, but if your wish to dip your toes into the world of Net alarm clocks and digital photo frames, there might be better ways to begin. A touch too late to the game, I must say. Hopefully a future version (if ever) from Altaz will be well placed to address all of its issues and make good then, writes tagza.com.
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