Have you noticed that Sony makes hardly any of the products they used to be famous for?

For example, Sony Handycam camcorders. In the late 2000s, Sony had as many as 16 models in their lineup.

But now they're down to just one model, which sells for almost $1,000,

well out of the reach of most consumers. Or the iconic Walkman, which revolutionized the way people listen to music.

Sony does still sell a handful of Walkman models, but none that play any kind of physical media now; they're just glorified MP3 players.

In fact, Sony no longer sells any kind of product for playing cassette tapes and compact discs; their last model, the CFD-S70 boombox, was discontinued in 2023.

Even if you're looking for something as mundane as a Sony Dream Machine clock radio, you won't find any sold under that name anymore.

Sony stopped using the Dream Machine name in the early 2010s, and their trademark for it has since been cancelled.

But Sony actually does still sell one model of clock radio, even though they don't call it a Dream Machine anymore: the ICF-C1, which has been on the market unchanged since 2015.

I came across this when I had a $10 Best Buy gift certificate burning a hole in my

pocket, and I was looking around the store for something relatively inexpensive to use it on. So, even though I don't need a new clock radio—I have a 1985 Magnavox

clock radio which is still working perfectly fine—I decided to pick it up. It sells for $19.99 and has an AM/FM radio tuner, which is good because many

modern radios only tune in FM now. And this is the French side I'm discovering, so I'll flip

it around to the English side. Gradual wake alarm, single alarm, DST automatic (daylight saving time) adjustment, which is interesting. Backup battery included.

Sony also used to have the ICF-C1T model with a mirrored finish on the front and dual alarms, but

Now you can only get this basic, single-alarm version, but it does have factory preset time. So, as soon as you plug it in, it should come up to something pretty close to

the correct time, so you don't need to set it. And there you can see the copyright date of 2015, so that's how long

Sony has been selling this model, and of course it's made in China. So let's open it up... a whole bunch of information there about time zones

I'll take a look at that later... We get some packaging, the power cord, which is good because it plugs directly into the wall, so it's not one of those that

requires a wall-wart power supply. And it's rather tightly packaged, but here it is... includes some documentation... and there it is, nice and new. Unfortunately, it does

not look like it has a plastic film covering the faceplate, which is unusual. On the front, you don't see anything when it's not plugged in, and even though this is not

the version with that mirrored finish on the front, it is pretty reflective. On this side is the speaker, which is probably a 2-inch or 2 1/2-inch speaker, and the volume

control for the radio. And on the other side is the tuning dial for the radio and the AM/FM

band switch, both of which are marked in very tiny and hard-to-read black lettering on a black case.

The main controls on the top are at least a little bit more legible. You get an alarm mode

switch for off, buzz, or radio; buttons for setting the alarm time; a radio button; a sleep button; an

alarm reset button; a little peephole window through which you can see the radio tuning dial; and then, of course, the large snooze button, which also controls the brightness of the display.

But the secondary controls on the rear are back to this nearly illegible black-on-black lettering,

so you'll probably need to learn how to use them by feel. It has a button for entering the time

setting mode, plus and minus buttons for setting the time, a DST button, and a time zone button.

and more nearly illegible, embossed lettering on the bottom, except for the serial number sticker

which also has a date code indicating this one was manufactured in the second quarter of 2024.

And in this black hole underneath is the CR2032 lithium coin cell backup battery, which you're supposed to be able to reach in and pull out, but unless you have child-sized

fingers, you'll probably need a pair of pliers to help you. And there it is, the CR2032 backup

battery, which hopefully will last a bit longer than one of those 9-volt batteries. As I'm recording this, early tomorrow morning is when we switch from Daylight Saving Time

to Standard Time, and the clock goes back an hour, so I'm going to leave my Handycam recording, and

at 2 a.m., we should see it flip back to 1:00 a.m., and the DST indicator should disappear.

And here are the three different brightness settings you get by pushing the snooze button: this is full brightness, that's medium brightness, and that's low brightness. But even the full

brightness isn't actually that bright, not like some clock displays which use blue LEDs and they light up the entire room at night. This is actually not that bad, and even if this is too much for you,

you can make it even dimmer, and the dimmest setting definitely will not disturb your sleep.

Now let me try setting the alarm, which is a bit unconventional because the set button doubles as the minus button, and when you push it, it just says 'off'. I could read

the manual, but you shouldn't need to read a manual to figure out how to set the alarm on a clock radio, so I'm going to try pushing it and holding it... OK,

that just flashed 'off' as well. So what are you supposed to do here? It just keeps saying 'off'.

Maybe I have to put the switch into one of the positions before I can set it... OK,

that seems to have done the trick. It started out at midnight, and now when I push 'minus', you can see

The time's going down, but I don't want to wake up at midnight, so let me set it to something more normal.

And the longer you hold it, the faster it goes. So it's... I don't think it's

as good as having separate hour and minute buttons, but at least it's not too bad, especially since you can go backwards, too.

Okay, it's currently 6:11, and I set the alarm to 6:15, and it's

going to use the buzzer. So in a couple of minutes, we'll hear what it sounds like. There it goes, and it has a gradual wake alarm, so it's

going to start out quiet and get gradually louder. That really is pretty quiet to start out with. There it goes... Is it going to get even louder than that?

And I guess that means you get 10 minutes for the snooze instead of the normal 9 minutes.

And there's the snooze, which also starts out quiet and gradually gets louder the longer you

let it go... which I think, if you're going to have a snooze, it should start out pretty

loud, to discourage you from keeping hitting the snooze button. But that's the way they

designed it. You can keep doing 10-minute snoozes indefinitely, I guess, until you finally shut it off.

And that's what the radio alarm sounds like. It just turns on the radio; nothing fancy. Like virtually all radios made today, this may look like it has an analog tuning dial,

but it's actually digital. The radio uses a digital signal processor chip to do its tuning, so you will notice some choppiness as you tune across the band, although it doesn't

seem to be quite as bad on the Sony as it is on some other radios I've tried.

So you can notice some of that choppiness as you tune across the dial, but it is picking up plenty of stations, so the reception is actually very good on FM.

"All news, all the time. This is 1010 WINS at 92.3 FM, New York. Good evening"

67° at 6:00 on this Thursday. I'm Paul Murnane. Here's what's happening"

on AM that's actually picking up 1180 WHAM, WHAM radio from Rochester, New York, which is probably about 250 miles away from here, so that's doing pretty good

Of course, it's nighttime right now, so it's going to be picking up some skywave on AM.

Yeah, if you adjust the tuning on AM, you're going to get some of that choppiness and also this very muffled sound quality. It's very narrowband on AM.

"Soft Rock Radio, the lighter side of classic rock and more. Online at softrockradio.net and on your Amazon smart speaker, just say, 'Play Soft Rock Radio.'"

And if you want to doze off to the radio, you press the sleep button and you get choices

of 90 minutes, 60 minutes, 30 minutes, or 15 minutes. And off leaves the radio on

continuously until you press the alarm reset button. It's not like most clock radios where if you want to cancel the sleep, you press snooze. On this, you press alarm reset.

So, unfortunately, this little cube-shaped ICF-C1 will probably be the end of the line for Sony

clock radios because it's their last model. It's not even called a Dream Machine anymore.

It's been on the market since 2015, and they're probably just going to

keep making it until someone at Sony decides it's not worth selling anymore. And that's a shame because, overall, I think it's a good product. Yes, some

of the controls are a little bit quirky and the radio doesn't have the best sound quality, but overall it does everything you need a clock radio to do. And that automatic

daylight saving time adjustment will come in handy for all the people who complain about needing to change their clocks twice a year. This one does it automatically.

And when you consider that it cost about the same as a similar clock radio would have cost 30 years ago, you really can't complain too much.

Don't Dream Machine it's over - Sony's last clock radio (ICF-C1)

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