Slim Devices Squuzebox V3

Stream like a dream. A stylish way to fill your house with digital music

This neat and stylish device enables you to stream digital music -- both stored tracks and Internet radio -- over the air from your computer to a hi-fi . If you've been hanging back from joining the media-streaming revolution, it could be the gizmo that brings you onboard.

Switch the unit on and it guides you through the set-up process to establish a link with your PC. This requires you to feed it some obscure technical information about your network, but don't fret if you're not up to speed with the vaguaries of Wi-Fi as there's plenty of support on the Slim Devices site.

Once up and running, you'll find this is an absolute joy to use. It plays AAC, WMA, OGG and the lossless WAV and AIF formats as well as good ol' MP3. The screen is incredibly bright and you can adjust the text size by remote so it's easily readable from across the room.

The menu, meanwhile, is the best thought-out we've seen on any music streamer. You can quickly browse tracks by artist, or album and song title, and there's also an easy-to-use search function where you can enter text, SMS-style, using the remote's keypad.

The sound quality is excellent too. The Beatles' murder anthem Helter Skelter sounds suitably beefy and manic, while there's good separation in evidence during Bloc Party's Two More Years.

It's beautifully styled as well -- a welcome change after years of Slim Devices that looked like they were knocked up in an electronics evening class. In fact, the only down sides are the relatively high price and the fact that it won't play DRM-protected fi les such as those from the iTunes Store. If you can live with that, you'll find this a first-rate way of blasting digital audio files throughout your house.