- So, Amazon Echo, let's talk new stuff again.
We have the original Echo,
the big obelisk with speakers, great.
We've got a $50 Echo Dot.
Got a portable Amazon Tap.
We have the new Echo Look
which has a camera in it
and will tell you how to dress, maybe.
And now we have the Amazon Echo Show
and let's just get this right out there right now.
This is the best Amazon Echo you can buy today.
It's really good, I like it a lot.
Here's the thing, it's gonna get better
and it has to get better.
It really needs to get better.
Hang on, I'll explain.
Let's go take a look.
This is the Amazon Echo Show.
(upbeat music)
So let's start with the basics here.
The Echo Show essentially is one of Amazon's
Fire HD 7 tablets with a couple of two inch speakers
strapped on the bottom.
Now all the tech in one place
means that it's also the most expensive Echo so far
at $229.
Now don't get too hung up on the specs of the display,
1024x600, it's not the most pixel dense screen you can find,
but you're also not gonna be holding it up
to your face like you would a tablet
'cause it looks just fine from half a room away.
The two inch speakers are pretty decent.
Definitely not as good as say a Sonos Play:1,
but they're plenty fine for casual listening
or music in a noisy kitchen,
which is where I've been using it a lot.
Real quick, set up is super easy,
just plug it in and add your wifi password
and you're done.
It's really that simple.
So, first and foremost, yes it's an Echo.
It'll do Amazon content great over wifi.
That includes Amazon video, Amazon music,
things like that.
It also ties into Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn radio,
Sirius XM and that's just for starters.
Now for anything else,
you can connect to the Echo Show with bluetooth.
Now because the Echo Show has a display,
you can watch videos too.
Yes, Amazon content is quick and easy
and you can have Alexa search out videos
on YouTube as well.
Alexa, show me videos by Jay-Z.
- [Alexa] Here's what I found.
- Now searching by voice
and then choosing the right one
can be a little hit and miss, but then again,
I've only gone looking for videos off and on.
If I'm really serious about watching something,
I'll break out the iPad or plop down in front of the TV.
Now I guess this counts as content, right?
Yes, you can still order things on the Echo Show.
It actually works a lot better here, I think,
being able to choose from things on the screen
then just having Alexa tell you,
here's this thing I found
and I'm gonna buy it for you now with your credit card.
It's not new, but it's definitely better.
Also not new is the ability to read books
through Kindle or Audible.
Alexa's voice is still horrible for anything
that's not narrated by an actual human being
and other than the display showing you
what's being read, you don't actually get anything new here.
Now for me, the bigger deal about the Echo Show
is definitely with messaging and specifically video calling.
So we've been able to do these for a little while now
with the Alexa app on our phones
as well as the existing Echos.
But now we've got video
and we've got an always ready to go
way to do it from home.
There's also this drop in feature
which is exactly how it sounds.
You drop in on any other Echo
and you can do it with the older Echos as well
just without video.
For about the first 10 or 15 seconds
you just get a fog in front of you,
but then it clears up and you can see
what's going on on the other end.
They didn't have to touch anything.
So, yeah, it sounds a little creepy
and it's on by default, that's probably not a good thing,
but the thing is, it's solving a problem I don't have.
If I wanna call somebody, I'm going to call them
and I want them to be able to choose
whether or not to talk to me.
In any case, this isn't going to kill off iMessage
or WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or any of that,
but here's where the potential really starts to come in.
What if they teamed up with one of them or Skype?
That would open up a huge world of video calling.
So here's a good question.
Where are you gonna put your Echo Show?
Now, pretty obviously, you wanna put it
in a high trafficked area, right?
A place where a lot of people are.
A place you're gonna be a lot.
For me, for a lot of you out there, that's the kitchen.
I've put one in the living room as well.
That's worked out really well there.
And I really wanted to know
how it was gonna work out in the bedroom.
I was kind of skeptical at first.
Turns out I didn't hate it
and it's got this really good do not disturb display
that kicks in at night so it's not lighting up at me
or making any noise or anything.
And you get this subtle little ambient clock there.
Very nice.
Of course you're gonna have to be comfortable
with the camera in the bedroom.
I mean, I am.
Isn't everybody?
Probably go ahead and turn off that drop in thing
'cause just yeah, just do it.
So like I said, it's definitely the best Echo
that Amazon has made so far.
And having a screen on this thing is way cool.
But the problem is nobody's really
taking advantage of it yet.
Now so many times I glance at the display as I'm going by
and it says here's this thing that we can do for you.
All you have to do is tell us.
This is 2017, right?
These things are supposed to know
what I want to see before I know.
A couple examples here.
Let's take flash briefing that's been around
since the original Echo.
Gives you a little news brief throughout your day.
You can pick and choose the items you want.
It gives you some weather.
Very cool.
A screen makes perfect sense here,
perfect opportunity for video and there's none.
All it does is flash up where the content is coming from,
NPR, Fox News, whatever.
Or let's go back to the kitchen.
Every weekend I tend to look up
the exact same waffle and pancake recipes.
So it makes sense that I would ask Alexa
to look them up for me and put them up on the screen.
Here's the problem.
Alexa, show me the Alton Brown waffle recipe.
- [Alexa] Welcome to All Recipes.
Sorry, I can't find any result for waffle, Alton and Brown.
- And Echo Show doesn't yet have a web browser
so I just can't go to it myself.
Now I get that they're not trying to turn this thing
into a tablet, but that's a pretty big miss.
One of the things I was really looking forward to using
was the ring doorbell.
It integrates.
There's a skill.
And I can say, Alexa, show me my front door
and she'll plop it right up there on the screen.
That's great.
- [Alexa] Getting front door camera.
- But here's the problem.
If somebody comes and rings the doorbell,
it doesn't show me a single thing.
It's definitely not that sort of whole home hub
that we've been hoping for all this time.
So that's the thing I've realized here,
Alexa's not really gotten any smarter yet.
She's just got a different way to show me information,
maybe, sometime, not always.
And this takes me back to one of the first things
I ever wrote about the original Amazon Echo.
It's really cool
It does things fairly well
and there's a ton of potential here.
It's maybe not there yet,
but it's definitely gonna get better.
Echo Show has some really neat tricks up its sleeve
and video calling is still a really big deal.
But outside of that, we've just got a display
and speakers that, when you think about it,
kinda do less than if you had one of Amazon's
$80 tablets.
No web browser, clunky searching, no real apps,
just limited skills and few of those have been updated
for the display and those that have
are still pretty underwhelming.
Now that said, Echo Show's still really cool,
looks good, sounds good.
Yes, it is the best Amazon Echo device we have so far
and it still has a ton of potential.
But the question you have to ask yourself
is are you willing to spend more than $220 on potential?
That's it for the Amazon Echo Show, it'll get better.
I hope, I promise.
Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.
That's it, we'll see you next time.
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