Sony PlayStation 3 review

At £340, the PlayStation 3 is by far the most expensive device in this Labs. Of course, you're not simply getting a video streamer for your money, though. Quite apart from the Xbox 360-beating gaming capabilities, it also betters the Xbox by including a Blu-ray drive, so you can watch HD movies, and the drive also supports Super Audio CD.

Another bonus is built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi - an optional extra on the Xbox 360 - and Bluetooth. It's good to see an HDMI port in addition to a proprietary AV output, and there are also optical S/PDIF and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. At the front are four USB ports, which can either be used to charge the wireless controller, or to plug in a USB hard disk or flash drive. A flip-up cover conceals useful media-card readers.

Inside is a 60GB hard disk (three times the capacity of the Xbox's and easily upgradable) and you can use this to store game data, music, photos and videos. Format support is wider than the Xbox, with MPEG1, 2 and 4 (H.264 and AVCHD) on the menu. Sadly, it can't play DivX or XviD, but you can stream these and other formats from a PC if you use TVersity.

Menus aren't quite as easy to navigate as the Xbox's, particularly when browsing the PlayStation store. To stream media, you have to select the server from either the Photo, Music or Video menus, but in each case it incorrectly offered us a submenu of all media types, even though it would only let us access the type of media we'd selected from the main menu. Menus are, however, vastly more attractive than the D-Link and Philips', showing thumbnails for photos, music albums and videos. Photo slideshows are stylish as are music visualisations, and it's easy to fast-forward and rewind videos.

Like the Apple TV, it's simple to watch movie trailers, and there's even a built-in web browser, which works surprisingly well with the wireless controller; you can even plug in a standard USB keyboard and mouse for a more PC-like experience. The PS3 isn't silent, but it's certainly quieter than the Xbox.

Viewed simply as a video streamer, the PS3 is poor value, but if you already have a 1080p HDTV the Blu-ray player alone makes it worth the price. If not, the Xbox is £127 cheaper and - when paired with a Media Center PC - offers the best video-streaming experience on test.

Author: Jim Martin