Amazon Echo Show review : addictive and amazing

Amazon Echo Show is the top of the line digital virtual assistant from Amazon, comes with a large 10.1″ display and powerful speakers. Priced at Rs.22,000/-, the second generation Amazon Echo Show can be purchased from Amazon India. In this review, we share our thoughts after using the Amazon Echo Show as kitchen and living room companion.

Background

It all started with Apple’s Siri voice assistance. Even though digital voice assistants existed for a while, they became popular with Apple’s Siri (announced back in 2011 at an Apple Special Event). Digital voice assistants at that time could only respond to questions that you had. In year 2012, Google came up with Google Now (replaced with Google Assistant in 2016) and it did (still does) better job than Apple’s Siri.

It was not until Amazon released Amazon Echo platform of speakers integrated with Alexa digital assistant in 2014 that we truly saw the rise of digital voice assistants. Amazon Echo and Alexa completely changed that way digital assistants worked. No more are they used to set alarm clock, check weather and scores. Amazon took a giant leap with them and we are able to book cabs, order pizzas, order groceries, control home electronics (smart devices).

Before we go deep into Alexa and Skills, lets check physical aspects of the Amazon Echo Show.

Build and features

The Amazon Echo Show looks classy, thanks to its front facing display and wedge like back covered by nylon fabric. A 5mp camera and four far-field microphones are placed above the display. At the top there is a button to stop Alexa from listening and there is a volume rocker. Four microphones are placed at the top and these are used in conjunction with four far-field microphones to get accurate voice sensing.

At first look, you may feel like the Echo Show has a built in battery but no, this one will not work when it is not connected to a power source. The power input, audio output and Kensington ports are placed below at the back. The rear body also contains dual 2 neodymium drivers & passive bass radiator.

The Amazon Echo Show is powered by Intel Atom x5-Z8350 processor and there is no detail of RAM and storage. The Echo Show also has a dual band, dual antenna 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless. The onboard Bluetooth radio comes with AVRCP and A2DP support.

Display

The 10.1″ display of Amazon Echo Show is crisp and clear. The touch response is pretty solid. Devices like Echo Show need very good viewing angle support and Amazon delivers on this one. Wherever you are in the room, the display never looked washed out when you look at it.

Real advantage of the large display is evident when you take a Skype call (connected to phone) or when you want to watch a video recipe of dish that you are about to prepare in your kitchen. Thanks to bright and large display, the Amazon Echo Show 2nd generation is better than the first generation and other small display digital assistants.

Audio and mic

You will be absolutely suprised at the quality of speakers on Amazon Echo Show. The dual 2″drivers and passive bass radiator deliver powerful sound that can fill your living room. These speakers are loud, very very loud. Just that they still cannot replace quality monitors or soundbars or 2.1 speakers that are usually installed in living room. If you have set it up in kitchen, the build in speakers are perfect and you will never feel the need to have separate set of speakers.

There are total of eight microphones on the Amazon Echo Show. While the microphones can easily catch your voice and process your commands, they struggle a bit if you have the speakers volume set to high. You have to move near the Echo Show and shout it out. Given how good the speakers are, I would not really complain as it it not often that we blow music on full volume on these speakers.

Setup and usage

The setup was very simple and straight forward. Install Amazon Alexa application on your phone, turn on Amazon Echo Show, follow onscreen instructions to connect it to your home Wi-Fi and to your phone, setup your Amazon account and you are set. To use it the way it is supposed to, there are few extra steps to perform. We are creating a list of tasks to do to fully utilize Amazon Echo devices.

Once you install Alexa application on your phone, explore every feature of this application. Three are lot of features that can be very helpful for you. You can check your activity on echo devices,setup new skills, routines,check to do lists and do more. There are some features hidden in the app that you will not find by treading on the surface.

When you connect your phone with Echo Show using Bluetooth, you can use Echo Show to answer your phone calls, to call and you can also use it to call your buddies who are on Skype.

Performance

Amazon Alexa relies on Natural language processing to understand voice commands. Unlike asking in phrases, you can talk to Alexa like how you talk to a normal human (natural language). Support for Indian regional languages is still WIP but our accent of English is very well picked up by Alexa. The speed at which Alexa responds to your voice is commendable. The faster your internet connection is, the faster Alexa retrieves data and shows it to you on Echo Show.

This was so easy to use that my 3.5 year old son was able to play his favorite rhymes and songs by speaking to Alexa. The interaction was so good and easy that it only took couple of minutes for my son to understand how to speak to Alexa. Alexa was easily able to pick up regional (Telugu and Hindi music) from various music streaming services and play to us.

Extra functionality to Alexa by installing applications from third party and these applications are called skills. For example, using Ola skill you can book an Ola cab. Like wise, using Dominos Pizza skill, you can book Dominos pizza using Echo Show.

One of the best features though for Echo Show is its ability to read your Amazon Kindle e-books. I have a huge catalogue of books and when I am not really in the mood to read on my own, I can ask Alexa to read the book while I close my eyes and relax in couch.

Another great feature is its ability to play video recipes from various recipe websites. Lack of support for Google’s YouTube is a bummer though.

What I truly missed was inability to output video to another device like TV. Without that, I have to buy a Fire TV stick to have video functionality. If I had this function, I could have hooked it up to my living room TV and use Alexa to play stuff on my TV.

Conclusion

Amazon Echo Show is not just another device that you plug in, say a few commands. You can make Skype calls by tethering your phone to it. You can watch cooking recipes and follow, you can setup remainders. But what you can do more is to tap into unlimited skills that Amazon and partners have made available. With these recipes, you can buy groceries, book a cab, read interactive books, have your kid listen to interactive books and do a lot more.

At Rs.22,000/-, the Amazon Echo Show is definitely the best Echo device you can purchase. If you have kids at home, Echo Show would be a better choice than tablets like iPad. We are compiling a guide that helps you get every ounce of tech inside the Echo Show. Follow us to know more.