- [Mr. Mobile] The Amazon Echo,
the Google Home,
Apple's Home Pod.
For the past few years, smart home devices have been
making life easier in living rooms around the world,
and now Google's finally gets a screen.
Is that display worth the extra dollars though?
I'm Mr. Mobile, let's find out
in the Lenovo Smart Display review.
(gentle music)
I've been using the smart display for a little less
than a week at home and in the office, and frankly,
I thought I'd need more time to get to know it.
It's pretty straight forward.
All the typical functions you expect
of a Google Home are here.
You can set reminders, ask it for the weather,
get it to play music or podcasts,
even get your blood pressure up watching the daily news.
Okay, hey Google, stop, enough.
Play something relaxing.
- [Google] Okay, here's a Spotify play list called
relax and unwind.
- [Mr. Mobile] The screen is what changes the game here,
because in addition to the above, now you can do things
like watch YouTube videos.
You can make video calls,
if you know anyone who uses Google Duo.
You can watch Star Trek Discovery, if you pay for CBS.
You can manage things like smart thermostats
and light bulbs by touch now, as well as by voice.
If you use Google photos, and by the way, you should,
this is the best digital picture frame there is,
because you can control it with your voice.
Show me pictures from Barcelona.
And those who wanna devote some kitchen counter space
to the smart display can take advantage of step-by-step
recipes with visual aids.
Now usually, when aspirational product like this falls down,
is on execution.
But not this time.
Almost everything the smart display promises to do,
it does, and does well.
I tested the larger of the two sizes,
and the screen itself is big, bright, and colorful.
The 10 watt speaker is quite loud
and delivers a surprising amount of bass.
I love my UE roll too for listening to music in the studio,
and the smart display speaker sounds about the same to me.
I adore the casing, which blends soft-touch plastic
and bamboo cladding in a design that's,
somehow it wants bold and subtle.
It's pretty enough to make me forget that there's
no built-in battery here.
This is meant to be plugged in and stay plugged in,
it just adds up.
And the camera brings more than enough quality
for video calls.
Now let's touch on that camera.
If you're like me, you're a little iffy about the prospect
of something sitting in your home watching you all the time.
Well, Google and Lenovo thought about that.
Flick this little switch on the side, and the camera's off.
Not just off, covered with a physical plastic hatch.
Slide a similar switch on top
and the microphone is muted too.
- [Google] The mic is muted.
- [Mr. Mobile] On a device so closely tied to Google,
whose name is never far from privacy debates,
these measures go a long way toward making me
more comfortable welcoming it into my home.
I really only ran into two rough patches
where the device didn't behave as it should.
First, despite it's dual array microphones,
the smart display often missed my voice commands
when it was playing loud music,
to the point where I had to repeatedly shout
to get it to respond.
And sometimes my commands took took a bit longer to process
than I expected.
Never more than a few seconds,
and never more than once every 10 requests or so,
but since it happened on both my home and office networks,
I thought it worth a mention.
My bigger gripes are the same ones that come
with any new product category.
It doesn't do as much as I'd like.
I haven't been able to cast to it from my phone,
like I can with a Chrome cast.
Also there's no Netflix integration at this time,
so I can't just throw up a Mystery Science Theater
while I'm cooking.
- [Google] Sorry, Netflix can't be played on smart display.
- [Mr. Mobile] This just seemed like big,
missed opportunities, and I hope they're corrected
in the future.
For what it's worth, Google did say back at CES in January
that casting capability is planned.
So maybe we'll see that in a future fix.
Less important, but again,
just kind of a missed opportunity.
You can't use the camera to take a quick photo.
I mean, Jibo can do that, and he can't do anything.
Sorry, buddy.
Are those shortfalls enough to keep me
from recommending this thing?
Not at all.
Yes, the smart display is more expensive than a traditional
Google Home by about a hundred bucks, give or take.
But if the question is whether the display brings
enough utility to justify that added cost,
I think the answer's definitely yes.
I never paid much attention to smart home stuff
before this device, and the thing that makes the difference
is that visual element of the display.
If you do a lot of shopping from home,
or you're otherwise big into Amazon,
you'll wanna consider an Echo Show instead.
And I believe Phil Nickinson will be running a comparison
over at Modern Dad for that.
But if you're as dependent on Google
as many of us are these days,
a Google Home is almost certainly the better option.
And given the choice between a standard, screen-less
Google Home and the Lenovo Smart Display, well,
I'd gladly drop the extra dollars on the latter.
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The Lenovo Smart Display is on sale this week
and getting a lot of coverage at Android Central, folks.
Tune in over there for in depth coverage
on its funky implementation of Android things.
And again, check out Modern Dad's take for the perspective
of someone who's a lot more comfy
with home tech than Mr. Mobile is.
Let me know in the comments if you find this sort
of smart home coverage useful.
And until next time, thanks for watching.
And stay mobile, my friends.