Hands-on with the Samsung Shape M7 and Hub (photos)

The M7 speaker ($399) has a sleek, wedgelike shape, with a textured speaker grille and a plastic cabinet that's available in either a white or black finish.

The speaker can be positioned horizontally or vertically using the included stand and in the vertical position you can pair two M7 speakers to act as a stereo pair.

It's a good-looking speaker, although the cabinet doesn't have quite the same high-end feel that Sonos' speakers have.

Each speaker has touch-sensitive controls on the top.

The M7 speakers can also be placed in a corner using an optional bracket.

Here's the bracket.

For multiroom setups, the Hub ($49) is required. It's a small black box that you connect to your router.

Setting up the Hub and several M7 speakers is done using the Shape smartphone app, and in the demo it didn't take more than a few minutes to get up and running.

Each speaker supports Bluetooth, NFC, and dual-band Wi-Fi, and with a single-speaker system, you connect directly to the speaker over Wi-Fi using your smartphone.

There's also an Ethernet port on the back of each speaker for making a direct, wired connection. Note that while there is a USB port on the back, it's only used for firmware updates, so you can't directly connect a USB hard drive full of music.

The Shape app is available for both iOS and Android.

The app lets you sync music in multiple rooms or play different music in each room.

The app looked simple to use during the demo, although visually it lacked some of the polish of Sonos' apps, such as integrated cover art, which I was told will be available on the official app.

You can also connect directly to speakers using Bluetooth.

At launch, the Shape app supports only a handful of streaming audio services: Amazon Cloud Player, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and Rhapsody.

Volume for each room is independently adjustable.

Each speaker can be renamed inside the app.

EQ settings for each speaker are also adjustable via the app.

The smartphone app lets you pick the connection type for each speaker.

The M7 speakers have one more trick up their sleeve, which is support for Samsung's SoundShare feature. It only works with compatible Samsung TVs, but SoundShare lets you wirelessly (via Bluetooth) use the M7 as a speaker for your TV. It's a neat feature and gets rid of one more pesky wire in your TV cabinet.

The M7 speakers are available in either a white or black finish.

For more information, check out CNET's story on the Samsung Shape wireless audio system.