10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
A Nice Feature-Packed Alarm Clock Radio Phone
Date of Review: Jan 24, 2008
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this unit despite the minor display and radio issues. The features and ease of use outweigh these flaws for me.
I received the GE 29297GE3 as a gift this past Christmas (2007) and I am pretty happy with it. My previous alarm clock radio with phone was getting old and the phone and radio were starting to cut in and out, so it was time to replace it.
One of the features that I really wanted, that my previous one didn't have was caller ID. I like that this unit not only stores the caller ID information but it also has a red indicator light that flashes if there were new calls. With the presidential primaries in full swing, caller ID is a MUST! :) It's easy to scroll through and delete the calls received with the up and down buttons on the front of the unit.
The phone works pretty well, but I would have liked a little longer cord for the handset. One nice feature is that the handset cord plugs into the middle of the base unit and the handset will rest in the cradle in either direction. this means you can set it up for either the right or left side of the bed and nightstand.
I also like that there are two alarms on this unit. I can keep my normal weekday alarm setting unchanged while setting a special alarm for weekends, special events, etc. The alarms can be set to go off with a buzzer or the radio and each alarm can be set to go off differently. The large snooze button also lights up when the alarm goes off. The buzzer is actually less unpleasant than a lot of alarms, possibly because it is a little slower of a beep than others. It doesn't jar you awake like the others do and the tone isn't too bad, considering nobody likes to be woken from a nice, deep sleep. The snooze button is right on the top of the front of the unit which makes it easy to reach. The amount of snooze time can be adjusted in the unit's main settings. When you use the snooze feature, the snooze button stays lit.
The radio reception is not the greatest and it is sometimes difficult to get the tuner (electronic) to land on the exact frequency you want. When the reception is strong, the sound quality is good. With the radio is a sleep timer that can be adjusted from 15 minutes to 2 hours, which is nice.
Setting the time and date can be done manually, or extremely easily by letting the unit receive the information from the phone company through an incoming call when caller ID is present.
My only real grievance with this unit is the display, as others have mentioned. Whether day or night, dimly or brightly lit, the LCD display is quite difficult to read, particularly the time. Both the contrast and backlighting are adjustable, but I haven't found a combination of settings that really works well yet. The most useful function of the backlight setting is that it helps to decrease the brightness of the unit at night. On the brighter settings, the unit will light up a room like a powerful night-light. For some people, this might be a distraction if they need a dark room in which to sleep.
Overall, the unit offers a lot of useful features and has worked well so far. Learning how to operate the unit and all of the settings is easy even without reading the manual. The buttons are well-labeled and decently sized. The unit is pretty compact but has some weight to it, it feels pretty solid.
