(gentle music)
- The new smart displays with Google Assistant are here
and this is the first one, it's the Lenovo Smart Display.
It's a Google Home with a screen, sure,
but it's something much more interesting than that.
It's basically a brand new operating system.
So, here's a question, what will Google do
now that it has this brand new clean slate to work with?
So, what you're looking at here
is the 10 inch Lenovo Smart Display.
It's $249 and it has a really nice design.
It's got this bamboo on the back and sort of a wedge shape.
It looks way better than the Amazon Echo Show.
You can also get a $199 version that's eight inches
but it has a really boring gray plastic back.
Honestly though, I'd be happy to have this
on my kitchen counter especially if it were
standing up like this because it has little feet to do that
but yeah, you can see the software is not designed
to work with it yet, Google hasn't finished that.
The only thing that works on portrait mode
is dual video calls.
Anyway let's suss out the rest of the hardware here.
My favorite feature surprisingly
is this little tiny switch right here,
which covers up the five megapixel camera.
Now people can't drop in on you
like they can on the Echo Show
but being able to cover up the camera means
I'm much more likely to put this thing
in my bedroom or my bathroom.
I keep a Google Home in my bathroom
and it's great so come at me.
Anyway, the speaker is fine.
It's a 10 watt speaker with two passive tweeters
and if you're hoping that this relatively big size
means relatively big bass, well sorry.
It sounds about the same as any other basic smart speaker.
It's nowhere near as good as the Sonos One
or an Apple HomePod.
A Smart Display can do everything
that a Google Home or a Google Home Mini can do
but the really important thing here is obviously the screen.
This thing runs on all new software called Android Things
which is technically based on Android
but this is completely different.
Now the Core UI is still your voice
but you can do stuff with the screen
and the main thing you need to know there
is swiping in from the left edge serves as a back button.
It takes you home, then to your photos
and then ultimately to the ambient display.
Now when you're on the home screen,
you can tap on the weather, look at that.
And then there's a bunch of cards
that basically serve to show you
what you could do and what you can ask.
And you'll notice one of these cards
is my personal calendar, it does show
personal information on this screen.
Luckily when you set it up with your phone,
one of the little options on there
tells you that if you don't want your personal information
visible to everybody in your house,
you can just leave that off.
So one of the things that Google Home can do
that's great is it can recognize your voice
and set reminders or show you your specific calender stuff
but it has to recognize your voice for it to do that
and that doesn't always work here.
So if I were to sort of speak weirdly,
hey Google, remind me to buy cheese on the way home.
- I couldn't verify your voice so I can't set any reminders.
- Hey Google, what's next on my calender?
- Your next event is called dinner.
It's today at 6:30pm, located in Rosa Mexicano.
- Hey Google, video call Felicia.
- Making a video call to Felicia Shivakumar.
(device ringing)
- Hey, how's it going?
- It's dark on my side.
(Dieter laughing)
- Hey Google, show me pictures of Vjeran Pavic.
- Showing your photos.
- There he is!
What a guy.
One of the big things to know
about this platform is there's no apps per say,
there are some third party integrations.
So for example, here's Spotify
and there are a handful of other apps that can have
stuff displayed on the screen but there's no App Store
and the touch UI here is pretty basic.
It's pretty basic but it's also pretty pretty.
In terms of how software design can look,
this is the clearest example of where
I think Google is going.
Since they didn't have to deal with any of the legacy cruft
like they did on Android or Chrome.
Google was free to just make what it wanted to make
and so what you end up with is very fluid animations,
really nice fonts, good drop shadows.
It just looks great.
If you ask it a how-to question,
you might get a Youtube video instead of
just like a weblink, so.
Hey Google.
How do I darn a sock?
- Okay, playing how to darn socks on Youtube.
- Now, I'm a Youtube TV subscriber
which means that I can just use this thing
as a television by saying something like,
hey Google, watch CNN.
- Alright, here's CNN on Youtube TV.
- And as soon as this plays,
I'm just watching live television.
It also works with HBO Now if you ask for a specific show.
What it doesn't have is Netflix or Hulu
which is kind of a huge bummer
but as long as you have a phone
that has a cast button like this Android phone,
you can still cast stuff to it.
You put it all together and this thing
makes a really great kitchen TV
but it only comes into its own
if you're fully bought in to the Google ecosystem.
So for example, I'm a Google Photo teaser
and having Google Photos in my kitchen
on the display is really, really nice.
It also makes video calls with Google Duo
which is also really good but not that many people use it.
Basically I see this thing as a really good Google appliance
which is, I don't know, fitting
because it goes into your kitchen with other appliances.
Oh, hey, one more thing, it also makes
regular old phone calls which is kind of a neat feature.
Now, my favorite feature of this thing might be recipes.
If you start a recipe, it shows each step one by one.
It doesn't move to the next step
till you ask for it and it stays on the screen.
It's really great and I hope that some day
Google allows us to put our own personal recipes
on the thing cause right now it just
pulls the recipes on the web.
Actually, that's a lie.
My very favorite feature, this is super dumb
but my very favorite feature is still timers,
because on this thing, the timer stay on the screen
the whole time.
You can even set multiple timers
and they all stay on the screen.
It's not how the Echo showed us it,
it's not how the HomePod does it.
It's the most basic thing and Google actually got it right.
Everything here is pretty simple, it's clean and it's fast.
If you aren't put off by the price,
having a screen on a smart speaker
is definitely better than not having one.
If you already bought in to an Amazon Echo ecosystem,
should you switch to this thing?
Nah, probably not but if you're using Google Assistant,
I think this thing is great.
It's my favorite smart speaker
with a display by a long mile even though I still hate,
hate saying hey Google compared to just saying Alexa.
More important to me, I hope that
Google expands its platform to work with
more third party software fairly soon.
Maybe the most fascinating part of this smart display
is that just by adding a screen to the Google Assistant,
they've completely changed how the Google Assistant
answers questions so if you ask it
how to do something, you might get a Youtube video.
If you ask it for photos, you might get your photos
instead of something from the web.
If you ask it for a recipe, you'll get a webpage
completely remade into step-by-step instructions for you.
It's the culmination of everything
Google has been trying to do with Search.
Making it give you answers instead of just
sending you to webpages.
So, what happens when Google actually does
have a clean slate to work with?
Turns out it makes a really great Google appliance.
Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching
and I don't know if you've noticed
but we're in a whole different space here.
We're gonna build out a set,
we've got this cool graphic behind us.
Also, you should check out vox.com's video on road diets.
I've been really into smart scooters lately
and a road diet is a really good way to make roads safe
for those scooters so take a look at it.