Phillips' AJL308 clock radio / digital photo frame is like a real life widget
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Nov 8th 2007 8:22AM
posted Nov 8th 2007 8:22AM
[Via Crave]
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Wait a minute. It's an alarm clock. It plays mp3s. But I can't play an mp3 for an alarm!? WTF
Also, you can't view slideshow when in clock mode. As a matter of fact, you can only view the first picture on your memory when in clock mode.
got for $99 bucks and it plays xvid files off of flash drives, sd card or even a portable hard drive... pretty cool for the price.. oh, it has an alarm too..
Perfect for my desk at work
Actually upon further review of commments for this device on Amazon:
You can't view the picture slide show in clock mode
No headphone jack
File names are limited to 6 characters
"random" play for pictures and mp3s isn't actually random
No effective way to scroll through mp3s or pics
Maybe Phillips' next iteration will address some of these concerns.
where'd you find it for $99?
alex: circuit city
$79.99 at Target right now...
PhiLLips :S
hmm maybe after x mas the price will be dropped.
aw man if it had weather it wouldve been perfect :(
I'm thinking a chumby sounds better. But then, I'm not big into widgets. Krell are good, but no widgets for me. (Krell from planet GNU, not from Altair IV.)
Yeah, I do have to say, the lack of a second "l" in "Philips" is pretty noticeable in that photo.
Anyway, Target often has these for $99 too -- I bought mine there a few weeks ago. It's OK; as Alex says, it's a good one-piece desk item. If I see it again before Christmas, it would make a good present for a couple of people who won't really notice the flaws.
Philips generally makes good stuff -- my Series 1 Tivo is still chugging away -- but I wish they'd included a little flash RAM in the thing or tossed in some minimal SD card so we could get started a little faster. If I do give any as gifts, I'll include a $25 1GB SD card.
why not include a $12 SD card?
Rather, $12 1gb sd card
It's Philips, with one L
good gawd people.. the company is Philips. one L, always has been, the headline is wrong, as is the text in the article, and the tag, the image on the product is correct
All I want from an alarm clock maker is the ability to set the days the alarm should go on or not. The cellphone makers nailed it and that is why I end up using it as my alarm source.
No battery backup (9volt). Next...
yeah, it's odd. Unless the device itself keeps a small charge itself to preserve settings when the power goes out.
Brochure: http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/a/ajl308_12/ajl308_12_pss_aen.pdf
Does anybody know if this will work with windows sideshow?
sorry, it won't.
No atomic setting?
no true random image?
no slideshow while clock is visible?
no picture navigation capability?
what's this world a coming to?
there is no way I would be able to sleep with a large backlit lcd screen next to my bed, even after all these years I still think my Wave Radio/CD is the best alarm clock ever.
now that is cool
I like the idea of adding picture display functionality but... does it have a programmable dimmer? My alarm clock is pretty close to my face and would rather not have a bright light in my eyes. If it is programmable, then it could be set to dim say from midnight until 8AM or until the alarm goes off.
It does have a dimmer mode that turns off the backlight, but I found even that is too bright. So I made a little cover for it I slip over it at night so I can sleep. :)
I have upgraded the ROM once so perhaps this is hackable down the road?
Rick
I saw this thing at Target and the demo unit's LCD display had a washed out image, horrible contrast and horrible image quality -- looked like a passive matrix STN panel! YUK! :oP
It could have had potential, but not when the manufacturer cheaps out on the components -- a weak 480x234 panel with 30ms refresh and 200 brightness. I guess Philips had to cut corners after adding all the clock radio, MP3 and calendar features when they priced it the same as their 7" photo frames.
IT PLAYS DIVX!!!
A "real life widget" is EXACTLY what I want! Give it the ability to run weather software and count me in.
I went to Target to get this right after I saw the article. But, the quality of screen really sucks as its resolution.
I may gonna wait for next product line.
Based on this article and the one on CNET Crave, I picked one of these up. Avoid it. It's a piece of crap.
More details here: http://saunderslog.com/2007/11/14/philips-ajl308-wait-for-version-2/
Somebody should make an app for this on Nokia N800, complete with media streaming.
It's not that bad, and it has a nice body - though the screen could be better, and a backup battery would be nice!
Main reason I bought it was to have an alarm clock (it is noisy enough to wake me up) and because it has 24-hour time - you have no idea how hard it is to find a half-decent clock with 24-hour time...
I got one as a gift for a relative. I have no complaints about the screen, the sound quality is OK. If I were redesigning it I would add (1) BATTERY BACKUP [make it hard to pre-configure as a gift!] (2) a headphone jack (3) playlists support. I guess longer song names would also be welcome.
On the picture-quality issue: It depends on what mode it's in. In clock mode, you do get a jaggy/compressed picture. But one press of the "Picture/video" button fixes that.