Sony Speaker Dock and Clock Radio for iPod Music Player, ICFC1IP (Color: Black). Wake up to your iPod® music player's tunes and enjoy automatic time set and daylight savings time features. Also compatible with the iPhone.

User Reviews about Sony ICF-C1iP - Clock radio with iPod cradle - black

Sound is good unless you try to crank it up - but it's a clock, so just don't crank it. Works like a wonder. Works with my iPod Video and iPhone 3GS. The brightness settings don't go low enough for my taste, but that's a minor flaw. -- Great, Reliable Product

After struggling to find an iPod clock radio that was acceptable, I finally settled on this one and I'm happy with it. It's very easy to use, has all the right features, and the sound is pretty good considering the cost/size. You really just have to come to terms with the fact that no company has managed to combine a great iPod speaker dock with a useful alarm clock. I think Sony comes about as close as you can for under $100.

I don't agree with the reviewers who criticize the clock's backlight for being too bright -- the lowest setting is so dark that you can hardly read the numbers. However, the version I purchased doesn't have that black square on the grille where the iPod rests, so perhaps Sony refined the product recently.

-- Meets Expectations

The title basically says it all in a nutshell.

I actually got this item on sale at Sears for about $25 but truly didn't pay anything for it as I purchased it with a gift card that had been given to me. But I would have paid $25 for this and actually was salivating at finding a dock that didn't cost an arm and a leg, for a change, from a namebrand company. I had not bought a dock before, despite eyeing many over the past year or so, because not only did they seem costly but, from reading descriptions on Amazon, they seemed generally to lack bass or otherwise lacked in the sound quality department. But for the price, I decided to take a chance on that, especially given this was from Sony.

That said, I would not pay too much more than what I paid for this--$50 probably would have been the most. It has many, many great features. I like that it has audio line-in, even coming with an audio cable. This allows you to hook the dock up to pretty much anything that has a headphone jack and play it through the dock's speakers. So if you don't have an iPod--say you have a Zune or Sansa--or you want to play your TV or computer through these speakers, absolutely no problem. I have tried it both with my TV and my laptop--I also do have a Zune--and it works just fine. This expands the usage of this dock, which makes it worth more money than what I paid for it. It also plays FM AND AM Radio, which is excellent, and you can preset five stations on the dock. Also, having a wireless remote goes without saying as far as how great that is. And no issues charging the iPod with this or getting too hot on the dock as the iPod Touch seems to do when you have it charging/are using it while its hooked up to the computer. I also have ZERO problems using wifi for music applications on the Touch when its on the dock--no drops/freezes/stops at all--unlike when I'm using the Touch for music applications normally. The stations play pretty fluidly, which I love--I can play a radio station on an application for hours and hours with no problems.

The problems:

-You can't do half the things you'd need to do with just the remote, especially if you have an iPod Touch. To do things like presets or change the clock settings, you have to get up and physically do that on the the dock. To me, the remote is mainly good for volume and switching to the next song/station...somewhat for getting into your iPod's music menu (again, I can only speak to what's true for the Touch). With the Touch, you have to get up if you want to get to the main menu/applications and select things that way. But it will play your applications, i.e. say you have some music applications and you want to hear music from one of those through the dock. The dock also tends to pick up where you left off (not necessarily in the middle of the song, though) if you do venture away from the music on your iPod to play the radio or to play applications (if you have not taken the iPod off the dock), which is something that doesn't happen when you listen to music on your iPod Touch normally, and you don't have to get up to switch away from the applications back to the music on your iPod--you just press the play button on your remote, and that music automatically starts back up.

-There is this XPand feature that seems worthless. At best, you can't tell a difference when you use it in the quality of the music, and at worst it makes the quality of the music decrease/have less clarity. Why have this instead of a bass button?

-The music sounds very clear and enjoyable, but it sounds best the louder it is and to get any bass you have to select bass from your iPod's equalizer--which still doesn't totally help.

-The clock settings are a bit screwy. It is supposed to be able to tell what time it is without your setting it, but not necessarily have your exact time zone. But it had neither my time zone nor the correct time--it was about 15 minutes off on the time. And following the directions to set the time was confusing--you have to press the "clock" button a few times before you can actually correct the time on the clock and I have no idea what the other stuff is that comes up before then.

--

I really like this dock, and the only thing about it that makes me unhappy when I use it is the lack of bass (I can understand, with this product being a little old, not working perfectly with the Touch/iPhone). But that is the only thing that takes away from an otherwise excellent product. I just wouldn't buy this for more than $50 unless I really needed/wanted a dock and this is the best I could find for the price. -- Good But Overpriced, Lacks Bass

After allowing iTunes to run an August 2009 update on the iPod, the iPod will no longer accept commands from the clock radio's remote control. You can only change the volume. Up until now, this was a wonderful unit. -- Very happy with purchase, but one problem.