- Hi, I'm Parris.
I occasionally get comments on the sound quality
in my video that there's too much echo.
Well bad news today, because I'm adding another one.
This is the Amazon Echo Show.
Went on sale yesterday.
And it does everything that the original,
big and loud, Amazon Echo did.
Small and quiet, Echo Dot did.
But the Amazon Show comes with a seven-inch
touch screen built into it,
as well as a camera.
It's watching you, while you're watching it.
♫ Epic Review Guys
What's the very first example listed
of what you can do with the Echo Show?
"Alexa, call dad."
I bet they're gonna sell a million of these.
500,000 for the younger family member
who lives in a different town,
and the other half million that'll be given to mom and dad.
Aren't there lots of other video call and video chat
applications that run on computers,
that run on phones?
Sure.
But how many of them are as easy as
"Alexa, call dad."
"Alexa, call Susie."
A lot of these are gonna be sold in pairs.
One for the younger member of the family,
and one for the parent or grandparent.
Because it's so easy to use.
The Echo Show goes for $230.
Find out more about it at the link
down below this video.
I'm glad to still be reviewing this as
the younger member of the family.
I'm actually going up to Seattle soon to visit my father.
And I'm thinking I'm gonna bring this along,
set it up for him and see what he thinks.
Do we like Echo's in this house?
I'm guessing so.
We actually have another one,
that I didn't even bring in here.
So we have three.
Use them mostly for music.
Occasionally for a kitchen timer.
Occasional homework question.
But more often, it's see something on TV,
or see an actor, "Oh, what's his name.
"Was he also in this?"
And so, we ask, and sometimes we'll get an answer.
But it's been all or nothing with the Echo's.
Either Alexa knows the answer,
or Alexa doesn't know the answer.
With the Echo Show,
there's now the opportunity to point you to more resources.
Like I know Siri always does,
it'll bring up a web page,
and say "Here, you find the information.
"I got you close enough."
So I'm thinking if you ask a question that
Alexa can get the gist of.
And so, with the Alexa Show,
I can begin the list of websites.
I can tap on that to go on and read about it.
Also, if I ask for a recipe for making banana bread.
Well, I can be told that by the Echo,
but then I'm not gonna remember all the ingredients.
With this, it's something that can just stay on the screen.
But enough theory, let's try it out.
So, I'll reactivate this one over here.
Alexa, what's John Lithgow's most popular movie
since the turn of the century?
Yeah, yeah.
I hear that a lot.
Alexa, what's John Lithgow's most popular movie?
- John Lithgow's latest film is "Pitch Perfect 3".
- Oh, I wanna see that.
See, now, it got some of the question,
and was able to give me a partial answer.
But with this screen interface,
I should be able to get more.
This is heavy and seemingly rather bulky.
It's not the latest in tidy tech.
It's like a giant bedside alarm clock.
You can't, it doesn't look like you can
adjust the angle of it or anything.
It just sits like this,
and then there's the screen.
Hopefully there's a good viewing angle.
Side to side, and from the top.
Now, you can also, if you want,
you can simply tell her to bring up a movie,
if you have Amazon Prime.
Which I presume you do if you're buying something like this.
And, you can watch that movie.
But it would just be on the seven inch screen.
One cool thing I heard about though,
in addition to asking for music to be played,
which we use this all the time for that.
With this, you can actually have it show you the lyrics.
Also in the box, pretty chunky transformer,
and a card showing things to do and try.
As well as instructions.
Now there are three buttons on the top.
There's volume up/down,
and there's a button that's not only mute,
it also turns off the camera.
I'd like to have one to just turn of the camera,
but leave it accepting voice commands.
Here's some things to try, with the Echo Show.
Some of these would work with your regular Echo as well.
Since Amazon is buying Whole Foods,
man I can see getting a recipe or a food suggestion.
Which they show you on the screen,
and it looks so delicious.
"Well, would you like us to send you these ingredients?"
Here's the device itself.
Big speaker grill, across the bottom.
The bottom.
The sides.
There's nothing else going on here,
except you plug in the power there.
And the buttons I mentioned on the top,
volume up and down,
and turn of the camera and microphone.
Here's the angle that it sits at.
There's no adjustment to it.
I'm guessing that should be reasonable
for having like on a table in a room,
for people to be able to see it.
- Hello, your Echo device is ready for setup.
- [Parris] I tapped on the wi-fi network to connect to,
and now I can type right on the screen, the password.
Now I hadn't considered that,
but having the Alexa app on the phone,
might allow me to make a video call
to this device from my phone.
That'd be interesting to try.
Ah, voice purchasing.
It is frighteningly simple to order something
from an Echo device.
Alexa, order me some probiotics.
- Based on your order history,
I found several matching items.
The first is Hyperbiotics Pro-15
probiotic supplement, 60 count.
- Yes, that's the one.
- It's $24.95 total.
- Yes, that's the one.
- Would you like to buy it?
- Yes.
- Okay, order placed,
and will be delivered by Saturday, July 1st.
See the Alexa app for details.
- I just ran out of that,
so I needed to order another bottle.
That's how frighteningly easy it is,
and why you might wanna go in and turn that off
to require a PIN authorization,
or something on an app,
so somebody, by accident, or with some malicious intent,
gets on and order stuff,
simply by having access to your Echo devices.
- Introducing Amazon Echo Show.
It's everything you love about Alexa,
but now, she can show you things.
And now there's a new way to be together.
Make hands-free video calls to friends and family.
- [Parris] Here's the default screen.
Yes, it's warm here in Austin.
Alexa, what's the temperature in Austin right now?
- [Alexa] Currently, in Austin, it's 97 degrees,
with partly sunny skies.
- [Parris] Now, how how do I get out of here?
I know the command to say,
but can I swipe it away?
I guess I can.
Alexa, go home.
Which takes me to the same screen.
Alexa, tell me about Christopher Columbus.
- [Alexa] Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer,
navigator and colonizer.
- [Parris] Alexa, who discovered America?
- [Alexa] According to European history,
Christopher Columbus is known for discovering
the Americas in 1492.
However, Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson
landed in Newfoundland in the 11th century.
But of course there were already millions of native
people living in the Americas when they arrived.
- [Parris] Very diplomatic.
Covered all the angles on that.
I kinda like it, having it here on the corner of the desk.
Though, I don't necessarily want this to keep coming up
and trying to get my attention,
and get me to interact.
Which is of course what it wants.
I just like, like a photo slideshow.
And I'm wondering if, rather than these generic photos,
if I could set it up...
I don't know if I can put photos on it,
or have them somewhere in my Amazon account,
that it could go and be like one of those photo frames,
that shows you family photos.
Goes through randomly.
Fades in, fades out.
Something like that would be nice.
Alexa, stop showing me news items on the screen.
(Alexa beeping)
Not gonna have it.
Alexa, play Jethro Tull.
- Shuffling songs by Jethro Tull.
- Even when it's giving me some cover art,
and showing me the lyrics,
it's still got the suggestions down in the bottom corner.
It's annoying me some,
that I can't get rid of the suggestions,
and news, and prompts from this.
It's something I didn't care for with the Kindle.
We have a couple in the family.
And I have the old Kindle for reading.
But the Kindle Fire, that the kids like,
I never really liked it because
I didn't feel like it would let me do what I wanted.
Everything was guiding me towards something.
Or I felt like I was being directed.
So I'm hoping this doesn't end up just being a Kindle Fire,
up at an angle.
I wanna use the Echo Show like my other Echo devices,
to create the environment I like here.
But, with the screen,
I'm just seeing in what ways it can be pushy,
in terms of trying to sell me things,
to sign up for services, and so forth.
Now, I like the calling and messaging feature.
I've never tried that.
I didn't realize I could do that with my other devices,
and with the app on the phone.
So I'm gonna give that a try.
The thing I don't like about setting that up,
is it wants to go in and look at all my contacts.
And then, upload that information to Amazon,
so I can contact them from anywhere.
I'm wary of giving them all my contacts.
What I'd prefer to do is just go in,
and set up manually
the people who I'd like to use this with.
But then it wanted my phone number,
and it was going to text me to verify
that was my phone number.
So that people out there with Alexa devices,
who want to use it for calling, can find me.
I'm going to bring the Amazon Show out to the living room.
Set it up out there, with a little explanation to everyone,
and see what uses the family finds for this.
And I'll do a follow up video.
I'll also set up the calling,
and see what my father thinks.
Maybe I'll bring this and leave it with him,
and then I'll probably have to order another one here.
And see whether he'd like to use that for video calling us.
Us for calling him.
Well, that's all about the Echo Show for now.
My original enthusiasm has waned a little.
Seeing I have to have prompts
to learn more about
"chicken sandwich takes balloon ride to space".
I don't need my life to be filled with these things.
I would just like, you know, a waterfall,
and some water music, or something in the background.
And maybe if I get a video to play that has that.
Something from YouTube, maybe that will work.
But it seems like, no matter what else is going on,
they always manage with the little prompts on the bottom.
Alexa, play Epic Review Guys on YouTube.
- Playing top result from YouTube.
- Hi, it's Epic Review Guys.
- And we have the very latest from Amazon here.
In this box is a mysterious Amazon Echo.
That's ready to take over everyone's living room.
♫ Epic Review Guys
- Alexa, home.
What a coincidence.
It jumped to my original Amazon Echo review.
Hmm.
Find out more about this one,
at the link down below this video.
Check back in a week or so,
and I'll let you know what the family thought
about the Echo Show.
And also if my father thought this would be
of much use for him.
Or, you can click that subscribe button,
and the bell next to it,
and you'll get notified when my videos go up.
See you on the next review.
♫ Epic Review Guys
♫ Wanna watch it all night long