launched last year the lenovo smart display was the first google assistant
display to come on the market a few months before google released their own
smart display now known as the google nest hub
we've had our lenovo smart display for over six months now so in this video i'm
going to go over what are the top features of the lenovo smart display how
the device is held up over the past six months what i typically use the device
for and then ultimately whether or not we recommend the lenovo smart display
let's dive in when lenovo gave me a smart display back in february i was
skeptical about it i already had several nest hubs at that point and i didn't
quite know if i needed another smart display the question I kept asking
myself about the Lenovo smart display was what exactly did it offer that was
different from Google's own smart display the 10-inch version that I was
sent was much larger than my nest hub and it had a camera those were the main
things I knew about the device before I pulled it out of its box for the first
time the build quality of the device was noticeably nicer than the nest hub the
volume and mute buttons felt more solid and I really liked the bamboo wood
backing of the device the Lenovo smart display can be placed
in both a widescreen or vertical screen setup though most of the time you're
going to keep it in landscape because the UI of the smart display only works
in landscape mode you'd only put the device in its other configuration for
video calling which we'll get to a little later
setting up the device was very simple and similar to setting up other Google
assistant devices the next thing you notice when you turn the device on is of
course the screen it's pretty big and overall quite nice compared to the nest
hub though the screen is much more blue looking especially if the lighting you
have tends to be on the warmer side this leads me to the largest downside of the
Lenovo smart displays in that they do not have an ambient color light
temperature sensor like you would find in a Google Nest hub as well as the
Google Nest hub ambient color light temperature sensors
are critical to having a screen look correct in different lighting
environments and it is key to wide the Google mask table and nest table Macs
are the best choices for a digital photo display connected to Google photos
photos are only one of the main features for the Lenovo smart display now after
using the device for over six months I think for the end user the main features
of this device are going to be photos music recipes videos and of course the
Google assistant now unlike photos music is actually an area where my Lenovo
smart display outshines my nest hub the Lenovo smart display has a great speaker
for its price and provides much more bass than the Google Nest hub there is a
caveat here though and that's the nest hub max which comes out next month we
don't yet know what the nest hub max will sound like but it's safe to say
that based on the specs for it it'll probably be just as good if not better
then the Lenovo smart display with the maxis stereo speakers and three inch
woofer in the back recipes are another area where the Lenovo smart display
really shines the huge screen real estate is great for viewing recipes and
overall Google's recipe system has vastly improved since the feature was
debuted almost two years ago now there are lots of sites that support
Google's recipe system when you search for a recipe on Google you can hit send
to smart display then you can go to your Lenovo smart display and say start
cooking and Google will bring up the recipe on the display the Google
assistant on the smart display will guide you through the ingredients you
need to prepare as well as the steps you need to take in order to complete the
recipe and you can save your favorite recipes by adding them to your cookbook
videos are also great on the Lenovo smart display again the huge screen real
estate of the device really makes all the difference with the 10-inch variant
it's great for playing YouTube videos especially if you decide to place your
smart display in your kit and need to watch some cooking videos on
YouTube do note that in case you wanted to turn your device into a TV for your
kitchen services like Netflix and Hulu are not yet supported on Google Smart
displays the last and most important feature of the Lenovo smart display is
of course the Google assistant the Google assistant can do so many things
it's hard to cover them all now it can basically answer anything you type in
the Google search bar for cooking it'll find you recipes realize you've run out
of something add it to your shopping list you can do things like asking it to
play the latest news play podcasts music get you the weather tell you how long
it'll take you to get somewhere add something to your calendar create
reminders control your smart home devices play games make phone calls etc
there is just so much you can use the Google assistant for now it's kind of
crazy now there is one feature that I haven't mentioned yet that does set the
Lenovo smart displays apart from specifically devices like the Google
Nest hub and that feature is a camera both sizes of the Lenovo smart displays
come with a camera the camera allows a user to use the Google assistant to make
google duo calls on the smart display the video quality on the Lenovo smart
display is pretty decent with a 5 megapixel wide-angle camera that allows
it to do 720p video calling also the Lenovo smart display has a camera cover
which is unique compared to the Google Nest hub max now video calling isn't
really a feature I use day-to-day but in my testing duo works really well
duo is available on almost every device imaginable now including Apple devices
like the iPhone so for a video calling solution it's actually pretty great
because it spans across different ecosystems now before we wrap up this
video there are a couple issues that we did run into with the Lenovo smart
display over the past six months that I do want to mention one issue I noticed
right away with the Lenovo smart display is that its display lags way more
the Google nest hub I have now I don't have the smaller Lenovo a smart display
to compare so this could only be an issue with the larger Lenovo smart
display the second issue I've noticed with the Lenovo smart display over the
past six months is on occasion there are just weird and slight inconsistencies
with its UI compared to the UI of the Google Nest hub the best example of this
is when plain media on a speaker group on the nest hub I can control the
individual speakers in the speaker group from the screen but on the Lenovo smart
display I can only control the overall group volume now sometimes it will show
all of the speakers in the group but it's been pretty inconsistent with this
over the past few months now one reason for this difference could be that while
the Google Nest hub in the Lenovo smart display while there you eyes look almost
identical they're actually the software behind them is not Google's own devices
which are the Google Nest hub and Google Nest hub max those devices are actually
built off of a chromecast architecture whereas all other Google assistant smart
displays are built on a stripped-down version of Android known as Android
things the difference between the architectures could be the reason why
there are some slight discrepancies between the two devices that I've
experienced over the past six months all right to wrap things up here's my take
on the Lenovo smart display overall I've quite enjoyed my time using the device
and in a world where the Google Nest hub and Google Nest hub max didn't exist
buying this device would be a no-brainer but because that's not the world we live
in we live in a world where this device competes directly with Google's own
offering I think that should give anyone pause when considering whether or not to
get the Lenovo smart display the areas where I think you'd choose a Lenovo
smart display over Google one are if you want to camera in a smaller form factor
with a seven-inch display what better sound in a smaller display size if you
like the overall all design aesthetic of the Lenovo smart
display better than Google's if you can get the device cheaper than Google's
offering or if you just in general like Lenovo products better than Google's
otherwise my recommendation would be to go either with a Google Nest hub or
Google Nest hub Macs especially if you want the best display for displaying
pictures well that wraps up our six months later review on the Lenovo smart
display thank you so much for watching if you like this video make sure to hit
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looking for your comments in our videos well anyways thanks again so much for
watching, for 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder