Philips Streamium MCi900 DVD and Wi-Fi Hi-Fi

Entertaining concept

Wed 3 Nov 2010 // 08:00 UTC

My test system spent most of its time hooked up to a Sony Bravia in place of the usual LG 5.1 disc player. I quickly came to the conclusion that the Philips was producing an altogether more natural sound than the 5.1 rig even if it did lack the trick surround sound effects and rumbling bass.

Looks good, sounds great, pity there's no Blu-ray drive though

The system proved commendable as a reliable music streamer too, finding all available UPnP sources quickly and never dropping a connection once found. Philips include a copy of Twonky Media Server with an unlock code should you need it or you can access your media library as a Samba file share.

As you would expect in this day and age you can also use the MCi900 to directly access vast numbers of Internet radio stations which rather compensates for the lack of DAB radio. Sadly, you don't get access to any Internet music services such as Napster or Last.fm though.

Verdict

As a music system, the MCi900 ticks all the right boxes and if your video collection is DVD-based it makes a fine home theatre system too. Sound quality is excellent, as is the upscaled video output. My only concern is that for the price it doesn't support Blu-ray discs, lacks an iPod dock and won't play DivX video files (just discs), all features I'd like to see before I parted with a thousand notes. ®