I have own two of these for year , they have take a lot of abuse -lrb- we have two small boy -rrb- and still work great . yes , the alarm setting can be off by a bit , but consistently by the same amount . so once you figure out by how much , you can easily make the correct adjustment . a small inconvenience in my opinion , consider the cost and overall quality - they do keep the time accurately . also , a nice snooze and crescendo feature , not too annoying but loud enough . all in all , a great value . Update 1\/09 Change of feature : I just get another one , and notice they no longer have the snooze and crescendo feature . will see if the reliability be the same as before .