Spotted this incredibly nostalgic little ‘Maclock’ whilst browsing AliExpress a couple of weeks ago and immediately fell in love with the design. It was only £15 so I simply couldn’t resist buying it on the spot and now, a couple of weeks later, here it is!
Opening up the box
It’s basically just a simple desk clock with an alarm function (which I’ll never use) but it’s really all about the design as it’s a perfectly formed little Mac Classic complete with ‘CRT’ screen and even a little floppy disk drive with a miniature floppy to put in it!
Everything you get…
Inside the box you get the clock, a USB-C charging cable, a floppy disk, instruction booklet and a sheet of stickers.
Maclock LCD ‘CRT’ Display
It’s pretty hard to show in the photos but it does actually have a curved screen, or rather a curved lens placed in front of the LCD to give the illusion of one. It works pretty well to be honest and given the budget price is an unexpected level of attention to detail .
Vents and carry handle
The authenticity doesn’t stop there though as the top incorporates a carry handle to lug it around with and air vents to keep that CRT cool. They even seem to have nailed the texture and colour of the plastic case too.
Rear of case
Round the back there’s a bunch of ports and an on off switch (non of which are actually functional) plus a USB-C port which is functional and used to power/charge it. The ports are a little low effort and nothing like the ports on a real Classic but they’ll fool most people and will be facing away from you most of the time anyway.
Flat LCD panel with curved lens in front of it
The screen is backlit and can be turned on and off via a touch sensitive strip above the ‘carry handle’. The screen displays the current time, day, date and temperature along with the charge status of the built-in rechargeable battery.
The rounded corners are a nice touch
The light is quite bright and easily visible in daylight. You can dim it to whatever level you like by means of a rotary control knob on the left just below the screen, exactly where you would expect to find it on the real thing.
Sticker sheet
In addition to the brightness control knob there are also a couple of other buttons underneath the screen that allow you to set the date and time an also turn the alarm function on and off.
Completed floppy disk
The sticker sheet is the key to reaching peak authenticity and lets you turn that nondescript plastic square into a pretty realistic looking floppy disk! It looks pretty convincing. In fact mine looks like its had a fair amount of use as the metal shutter appears to be a little bent!
Pretty convincing I think
The floppy disk is actually the on-off switch for the clock. Slide it in and press it down and it will lock into position and turn it on. ‘Eject’ it to turn it off again – however realistically you will never need to.
Look at that plastic texture on the case
When you turn it on you are greeted with the Mac OS smiling face. In the photo below you can see the little Apple logo correctly positioned on the front of the machine completing the look.
Maclock ‘boot’ screen when floppy disk first inserted
The stickers are definitely essential, especially for transforming the appearance of the disk and the back of the machine.
Looks so much better with the stickers attached
The clock is powered by an internal 1200mAh battery and has a claimed life of 60 days (with the backlight off). I fully charged mine the day I got it and have had it switched on all the time for the past 10 days with occasional use of the backlight and the battery charge indicator hasn’t budged one little bit.
Proper Apple logo on display
I used to have a Mac Classic at work back in the 90’s running System 7.1 if I remember correctly. It had a tiny black and white CRT display and a built in speaker to make that distinctive ‘bong’ sound when you turned it on. It was a really cool little machine and quite responsive when using ClarisWorks. I could kick myself for letting it go to landfill as they’re worth quite a bit now. But regardless the Maclock is a terrific and functional little device that not only tugs on the old nostalgia strings but actually serves a useful purpose! I mean it would have been even cooler if it was a miniature SX64 but it’s still an awesome little clock and I love it.
Please note AliExpress haven’t sponsored this post or anything, I just saw it, thought it looked cool and bought it with my own money and thought you guys might find it interesting too. There is an affiliate link below which won’t cost you anything to use but will give me a teeny tiny commission if you use it and buy one which would help with my hosting costs.
Checkout the Maclock on AliExpress here. You can get one on Amazon too but it looks like they still ship from China and at the time of posting this they are quite a bit more expensive too…
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