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The clock itself looks like the clockwork alarm clock I grew up with just after the war. It is 13x13x7cm, However the face is digital (no hands) and at the back where you would have the winder you have the DC power input and below this a semi circle of five items four buttons and a 3.5mm Auxiliary input. There is no external FM aerial.

So plug in your clock and let the fun begin, I say fun because the manual only describes what these four buttons Mode, Set, Down and Up do. There is an illustration on the page before in the manual that shows three other buttons and under a strong light you can see a slight impression in the grey rubber this is in the same colour.

Setting the time comes fairly easily as it uses Mode and Set and once you have the correct area year, month, day, 24/12 hour, hour and minute its easy to use the up and down to set the time etc and providing there are no power cuts this task is then completed.

However setting any of the five possible alarms is somewhat more difficult as the wording is shall we say unhelpful? It then moves on to say that when the alarm rings (for up to five minutes) you can press ‘snooze’ let the alarm ring again press ‘snooze’ again alarm will ring again before moving to standby. At this point simple turning off of the alarm is not mentioned. Mind you I suspect you will have done well to set it up initially.

See also: iPod docking stations

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Likewise the unit has a sleep timer which can be set for 15, 30, 45, 60, 90minutes or off. Good luck to find how to program this.

The first eight pages of the manual are in English and to be fair what it does say it says perfectly clearly it’s what it does not say, it mentions things that have not been identified and doing things as it describes takes you in circles. I have used a number of items that come from Hong Kong and sometimes they come with only Chinese instructions I think on the whole this might have not been much different here. Mind you none of the five languages here were Chinese.

So having a working clock is fine, the FM radio reception is acceptable you may need to twist the unit slightly to get better reception for some. It does have presets but programming them is not straightforward.

So a clock, an alarm/sleep timer - with trial and error – the ability to attach an external device like an MP3 player, the sound quality is rather good from the unit. All these things with the retro feel of the unit give it a decent manual and it would be ok.

However it also has an iPod dock and this sits in front of the alarm clock yes you have guessed it the clock cannot be seen when the iPod is in the dock. Why could the dock not be located at the side, back, top or even underneath?

The iPod will be charged when in place and the sound when you turn the iPod on is fine but if its in the dock you will need to remember the keystoke combination to do so as you cannot of course see the clock screen to tell you what mode its in.

If you really dislike someone I suggest that this might be the gift to give them, as always I try to be fair but I spent a lot of time reading the manual until I could probably recite it, even if you forgive this then how can you forgive a dock that hides the clock. Why not just have a speaker dock and use the alarm function from the iPod.  

The Edifier Tick Tock Dock is available from the first link below for £59.99 with free delivery.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005JAMD3I?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge0a-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634

http://www.edifier-international.com/products/edifier-image/tick-tock-sdusbfm-radio