I received the black ih5 for Christmas from my mom. We were looking to replace an aging and partial broken Nakamichi alarm clock/radio/cd player. There were two main reasons we wanted to replace that — the motor that lifted the CD cover was broken so you had to hold the back left arm as it raised and lowered, and the number of cables was ridiculous! There was a sub woofer, and a left and right speaker, with all the controls and CD unit built into one of those. But there were literally 10-15 cables to connect those 3 units, so all it did was collect cat hair and dust behind the bed.

So the ih5 is a nice replacement for that reason because there is just one cable for power. We hadn’t really used the CD player on the old unit that much recently, but now having the ipod there, it’s great to just turn on music in the room for a few minutes. You can also wake to the ipod, but so far the few times I’ve needed to use the alarm I’ve just used the buzzer.

The good:

• ipod in the bedroom for lost of music
• sound is relatively good for such a small unit
• just one wire! 🙂
• controls are all relatively intuitive

The bad:

• The unit casts incredible light. It does have 3 settings, the highest of which is like a small black and white tv. Even the lowest setting is fairly bright so we have to cover it at night.
• To control everything except on/off and volume of the ipod, you have to use the ipod controls. This unit would have been amazing if it would let you control everything via the alarm clock rather than the ipod. Maybe the next generation will have that.
• The remote control is option and costs an additional $19.95.

Overall I’m happy with the unit and would recommend it to anyone with an ipod that wants music in their bedroom.