this is the first Google Assistant run smart clock made by Lenovo it's pretty
cute and tiny and blends well with other Google home slash Google Nest products
now over the past few weeks I've gotten to play around with the smart clock so I
wanted to go ahead and give you my first impressions of the device as well as
answer several questions that were submitted from viewers like you to our
channel so let's dive in right out of the box my first impression of this
device was wow this thing is really tiny and oddly kind of cute the mesh on the
back of the device feels nice and very similar to the Google Home Mini the
volume buttons are easy to press and have a nice tactile feel to them so you
don't have to guess where they are I love that Lenovo included a USB A port
on the back for you to plug a charging cable to something like your phone or
your watch into it if your wall always seems to be running out of plugs like
mine does you'll definitely appreciate that feature the screen of the smart
clock overall looks great and because it doesn't display photos like the nest hub
or other Lenovo smart displays I don't think it needs an ambient color like
temperature sensor which is something I wished the Lenovo smart displays had I
like that the alarm clock also has a sensor at the top so when you slam your
hand down on the clock it'll snooze your alarm it's good to know that there are
some night owls working for Lenovo now moving on let's talk about how you use
this device and so far in my experience actually using this device has been
simple the touch controls are pretty intuitive touch and hold to get
different clock faces swipe to the left of the clock face to go to your
reminders and alarm settings swipe down from the top of the screen to get to
your shortcuts alarms routines and more and then swipe up from the bottom of the
screen to get ambient brightness volume do-not-disturb and other settings all
right now on to some of the things I don't like about the device now just
fair warning these are going to be very minor there's no major hang-ups I have
about this device at all but the first one is there's no way to actually
automatically turn off this screen at night you can tell the smart
clock to turn off the screen which is very useful but I wish you could
automate this so when the clock senses it's completely dark it turns off the
screen completely now the second minor issue I've run into
with this device is that the microphones on the smart clock just aren't good
enough to pick up your voice if there's another google home device nearby my
google home acts constantly picks up the request over the smart clock even though
the smart clock is much closer to the side of the bed than the google home max
i have to be pretty close to the clock for it to pick up my voice this scenario
however is only going to apply to people who have way too many google assistant
devices already in their home like I do all right now on to your questions so we
posted a few weeks ago on the six months later channel that we had the Lenovo
smart clock and we're going to do a video about it and we wanted to hear
what our subscribers what questions they had about the device so if you want your
question answered on the next video make sure your one subscribe to the channel
and to make sure you select that bell icon and make sure you're receiving all
notifications from our channel that way you're never going to miss when we post
about a tech product that we're about to do a video on if you want to have your
question in a video like this so let's go ahead and move to our first question
and that comes from Bradley, Bradley asks how loud is the smart speaker could one
play music with it that maybe parallels the sound of a Google Home Mini well
thanks for the question Bradley the smart clock speaker does get loud though
I wouldn't say it's as loud as the Google Home Mini speaker now like the
Google Home any when you pump up the volume on the smart clock you are going
to start hearing distortion of the music and media that you're playing right
around volume level seven to eight now overall I did find that the Google
Home Mini for whatever reason does seem to have a little bit of a fuller sound
though it's very slight and overall I would still say that both speakers are
pretty much neck-and-neck when you compare their sound quality all
right on to the next question Daniel asks using the Google Assistant
without a screen isn't a bad experience is it really worth the extra money just
to get the same info you'd get on say a home mini but with the screen thanks for
your question Daniel one yes I do think in general the experience you get on
Google Assistant smart displays is better than just having a smart speaker
so if you want to get the information that you typically get with a Google
Home with a Google smart display you're going to want to get a Google Assistant
powered smart display versus something like the Lenovo smart clock and the
reason for that is is that the Lenovo smart clock just is not made to give you
all of the same information and do all of the same things that a Google
assistant smart display can do like the nest hub the nest hub can do things like
show you pictures it can show you videos it can play YouTube videos it can do
recipes and can show you music speaker group controls etc those are just things
that are not possible with the Lenovo smart clock now with the Lenovo smart
clock you will get functionality that is visual like it'll show you your calendar
events it'll show you reminders it'll show you the weather and of course it
will show you the time so I hope that helps all right let's go ahead and go to
our next question and that comes from Joseph, Joseph asks is it gimmicky I
usually see a lot of gimmicks with this sort of thing well that's a fair
question I think Lenovo, the Lenovo smart clock
and the question you got to ask is does the functionality it adds to the
traditional alarm clock experience is that enough to make it a value add to
the consumer and I think that adds the answer to that question is yes I think
there is enough of a value add to the features that Lenovo smart
clock has over a traditional alarm clock where this device would not fit into the
category of a gimmick 8 device I mean you've got the USB A port on the back
you've got a touchscreen you've got multiple clock faces and of course the
biggest thing the Google Assistant integration all of that packaged
together is definitely an improvement over a traditional alarm clock
experience hope that helps answer your question let's go ahead and move on to
the next one and the next question comes from Sonic Extra Life fan they ask can
it play YouTube unfortunately no this device is not meant to play YouTube
videos but if you do want a Google assistant device they can't play YouTube
videos you're gonna want to look at something like a Nest Hub, Nest Hub Max
or a Lenovo smart display alright let's go ahead and move on to the next
question and that comes from emmavas and they asked is it fluid or laggy any
personal assistant I'd say it's pretty fluid I've not noticed any lag with the
Lenovo smart clock at all actually and and that is something that we didn't
notice on I guess you could say like the bigger brother the Lenovo smart display
which is a much larger screen and so you need a chip that can drive all the
pixels than that much larger display and that for that device we did notice there
was a little bit of lag but not with a smart clock it's very fluid and of
course we've already answered this the smart assistant on it is the Google
Assistant alright and our final question comes from bill bill asks can we
consider it a Google home mini plus a screen or is it much more than that I'd
actually say the lenovo smart clock is actually it's a little bit less than
just having a Google Home Mini plus a screen i mean we already know what the
Google Home Mini plus a screen product looks like and that is the nest hub
which we've actually done a review of on this channel so anyone's interested in a
product like that you can just click on this card in the
video or I'll make sure to link it in the description below but the lenovo
smart clock is it meant to do the same things as the Google Nest Hub as we've
stated in for a previous question but what the lenovo smart clock is meant to
do in my experience at least so far it does very well alright well that wraps
up our question and answers on the lenovo smart clock thank you to everyone
who submitted a question for this video this is something we plan on doing more
of in the future for our first impressions videos so if you like the
concept of the QA segment within a first
impressions video make sure to let us know in the comments below if you liked
this video make sure to hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel
if you'd like to see more Google Assistant product videos like this one
well for 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder thanks for watching.