Amazon Echo Show Review:

The Amazon Echo Show uses the best technology to create an outstanding gadget, perfect for a smart home. Being powered by Intel makes the Echo Show incredibly responsive to your commands with no delay. Another great aspect is that you are able to communicate with other Echo devices as well as devices with the Amazon Alexa app (eg: Phones, Tablets & more). The “Drop In” feature is particularly impressive and you don’t even have to be connected on the same network. The video calling is great with the Echo Show’s crystal clear built-in camera that gives a brilliant picture.

The Echo Show’s display is small but effective with a quality screen. It is a touchscreen to enable you to manually change the brightness and access settings or go home. There are 3 buttons on the top of the Echo Show, volume up and down buttons as well as a button to mute the mic and disable the camera.

The powerful Dolby-Powered Stereo Sound fills the room giving effective bass and crisp audio. The 8 microphones give far-field voice recognition which is particularly convenient. The microphones also use noise cancellation to even hear you over music. With Amazon Prime, you are able to access lots of different songs but even more with Amazon Music Unlimited. With most songs, on-screen lyrics appear in time with the song which is a nice touch. While it could be described as just a “glorified music player” it also has some great features.

Our favourite feature is the latest news feature in which the latest BBC broadcast can be played with the BBC news skill enabled. You will also then receive the weather forecast. All of this happens after saying “Alexa, give me my flash briefing”. There are also a large number of different devices that can be connected to create a smart home. These include light bulbs, locks and plug sockets.

While YouTube is not available on the Echo Show, Alexa can still play any movie trailer you want along with any Amazon Prime Video Movie or TV Show* (Amazon Prime Membership Required). Radio stations can also be played, you just need the skills available to install on the Amazon Alexa app.

There are many different apps and services the Echo Show is compatible with including Spotify, Uber, BBC, The Guardian and much more. There are lots of different skills ranging from games to novelty and much more. Music quizzes can also be played along with trivia games. Try “Alexa, sing me a song” and you’ll be in for a surprise along with “Alexa, can you rap?”. Alexa can also do any calculation, set a timer, say how to spell a word and create a to-do list. The super loud sound creates a great alarm too.