Philips NP1100/37 Streamium Network Music Player with 3.0" B&W Display

I'm a geek, so if you're a fellow geek I suppose you'll find this review particularly very useful.

I had never heard of this device until I was walking through a local store and saw them on a closeout sale. When I walked by it just looked like a neat clock, but when I saw it played internet radio I had to get one.

I trust the Philips brand and before purchasing I looked it up on Amazon to see the reviews and Amazon's price. The store was selling it at a significant discount, and with it having a rating of 4 of 5 stars I knew I couldn't go wrong.

I had this thing set up on my home network in about 5 minutes & was able to pull music from my NAS device which has a UPNP server built in. I then was able to pull up various internet radio streams. Now I don't have to have a wire going to my computer from my speakers, I can just have my Streamium sitting there ready to play.

I went back to the store the next week and saw that they had been marked down an additional $10 (too bad I didn't kepe my receipt). They didn't have it set up to do anything but within 2 minutes I had it connected to the store's wireless network and streaming an internet radio station. I showed it to a friend of mine who bought one on the spot.

I don't have a rhapsody account and have not yet attempted to use that functionality.

Things I Like:
- Has a neat-looking clock (you can disable this if you wish)
- The clock will automatically synchronize the time with internet time servers
- Connects to wireless OR wired networks
- Has an EXTENSIVE list of internet radio stations built in
- You can add other compatible radio stations through a web interface on a Philips Site.
- RCA analog output, headphone output, and Coax Digital output
- When listening to an internet station you can click "favorite" to have that station added to your favorites
- Song/artist data displays on the screen (if the station supports it/your files are tagged poperly)
- Built in volume control (Great since the powered speakers I'm using don't have a remote)
- Brightness of the display is adjustable
- Sleek design
- Easy firmware upgrades right from the device
- With the right UPNP software you can control this device from anywhere in your network. I haven't played with this too extensively yet.

Things I don't like:
- Philips maintains their own list of internet radio stations, which may change. If your favorite station disappears you need to re-add it manually.
- Browsing through your home music collection can be tedious. If you want a device solely for playing your mp3s then there are probably better devices out there. (I like XBMC software on a dedicated box)
- I'm not sure if it's my time zone or the new Daylight Savings Time rules but the clock was 1 hour off after the switch. Once I disabled DST on the clock it started displaying the correct time.
- Song/artist data scrolls extremely slowly
- No Alarm Clock Function

Other things to note:
- The only button on the device is a power button. (Don't lose the remote!)
- Shiny finish will attract fingerprints
- The device seems to depend on a server at Philips for internet radio information. This could mean that if that server were to ever go down that the device would be unable to play internet radio streams. Given that we're dealing with Philips, I don't see that happening but it's something to be aware of.


Conclusion: I've had this thing for about a month now and I love it. I actually bought a second one to put in my kitchen. For the price of a squeezebox you can get one of these and an incredible set of powered PC speakers. It looks as if Philips is no longer producing this model and have migrated towards ones with built in speakers. For those of us who have speaker systems and would like an easy way to get internet radio or our mp3s to play over them without using a computer for that purpose, this is the way to go!

This device is great for non-techies. You might have to help them set it up initially, but after that they should be just fine. I've handed the remote over to plenty of people and they've had little to no trouble navigating the internet radio stations.

If you're like me and never read the manual when setting up a new piece of AV equipment, you'll have no problems. I use this with wired Ethernet but also found it works well with wireless. If you plan to use the Internet streaming audio feature, run, don't walk to the Philips web site and set up an account to manage your Internet radio stations.

The display is black & white at eye level, but at a 15-30 degree angle above the unit takes on a bluish tint. It is large enough to read at least 15 feet away.

The remote has small lettering and is difficult to use to enter text. Remote is not backlit nor does it glow in the dark. I only use it to turn the unit on and off and navigate the menus, so I didn't bother updating my Harmony remote.

I got this from a Lightning Deal for close to fifty of the U.S. dollars, which is a fair price.

I bought this as a Gold Box deal and am very pleased. My hi-fi setup included satellite radio but I did not want to pay the fee. This gives me excellent internet music stations @ no cost! My only beef is that it is not compatible with my Mac for music streaming. I do have other "PCs" that I use with it however.

I am not going to add much to the previous reviews. I bought the unit to primarily use with my Rhapsody account. This thing works great. Turn it on and set it up. It will search for your wireless network. Just scroll down to the one that is yours. At first it did not ask for my WPA security code (my network is password protected). But I went back into set up and typed it in using the keypad of the remote. (Its just like texting). Then I was connected to the internet and the unit downloaded some upgraded software for itself. Then I chose Rhapsody and typed in my userid and password and I was in. I can pretty much access most parts of Rhapsody. My channels, my library, and all the other Rhapsody music and channels and such.
Whats nice is that I dont have to have Rhapsody up on my pc or have my pc on. This thing connects thru the internet directly to Rhapsody. The remote works great. I can favorite songs, add them to my library, search for songs or artists, whatever.....
Now I bought mine on Sept 15th 2009. I bought it at Newegg for $82 with free shipping. That is a very good price. Amazon at this time is listing it for $150. So depending on when you read this, you might be able to get it from Newegg.

After reading reviews I was not too confident with the product but decided to try it out anyways and what a great decision it turned out to be. The unit looks slick on my nightstand. I connected it to my creative 2.1 speakers and am loving it. I personally prefer external speakers over crappy internal ones. Here is a list of pros and cons:

PROs
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1) Media streaming at a decent price
2) Wifi and wired connectivity
3) WPA2 encryption working flawlessly
4) Works with hidden SSID (Works after firmware upgrade)
5) Well thought out remote control button shortcuts
6) Dimmer option
7) Large and easy to read icons and text
8) Internet Radio, Personal Media Streaming and Music services in one package
9) Composite, optical and auxillary stereo out

CONs
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1) Setup is involved if you have advanced wireless setup. You may need to enable SSID broadcast at first. (MAC ID can be obtained from the bottom label of the unit for MAC filtering). Update your firmware before you do anything else.
2) Search function is not accurate if you do not spell out the whole search word.
3) If you have a large library of music files then the initial syncing of media file list takes a very long time to get populated on the streamium device.
4) No option to add files to currently playing playlist.
5) While searching if the search takes a little long then it returns to displaying current track. You have to keep going back to search to view the results and make a selection.

Overall it is a great buy and I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a streaming setup with quality external speakers.