Samsung HT-C7550W Blu-ray home cinema system review

There are a lot of reasons why all-in-one soundbars are fast replacing home cinema systems, and the HT-C7550W is one of them. Built around a superb Blu-ray player and featuring online content, a pair of wireless surround speakers and an iPod dock, this otherwise traditional 5.1 system’s first impressions are not good.
Comprising a tiny centre speaker, four surround speakers and a subwoofer, there’s an over reliance on black moulded plastic that will jar with almost all interiors. If you plan to use them in a dark room reserved only for your home cinema, so be it, but don’t think the HT-C7550W will look great in a magnolia-walled living room.
The Blu-ray player at its core gets a glowing mention; inside is 1GB of storage for BD Live downloads, a full roster of Samsung’s Internet@TV online content channels, All Share DLNA streaming (both of these features can work over wired Ethernet to a router, or through the included Wi-Fi USB dongle), a 15-second boot-up and an iPod/iPhone dock as an accessory.
A few more issues; the touch commands on the main unit’s front aren’t sensitive enough, and the disc tray closed of its own accord while we were trying to load a Blu-ray disc.

On the rear on the unit are Component video inputs, two HDMI inputs (so the unit can act as a switcher and take feeds from a set-top box and games console before outputting everything to a TV) and a HDMI output.