Google and Amazon are really the only game in town if you’re looking for a plug-and-play smart display, but the companies came to similar products from very different directions. The usefulness of a smart display mainly has to do with the ecosystem you have committed to, which makes recommendations not easy. If you’re on Team Apple, you have to keep hoping that Tim Cook will announce a Siri smart display one day.
Both products are rather rigid and expect you to adapt to them rather than the other way around. The Google screen only works with the Google Assistant and pushes you to Google products, while the Amazon screen only works with Alexa and pushes you to Amazon products. There are a few partners that offer different functions, such as music and cameras, but these products are not as infinitely configurable as a smartphone. Smart displays often require ecosystem compliance.
The echo show 10
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The Amazon Echo Show 10. It has a large screen on a rotating base.
Ron Amadeo
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The little black part at the bottom is the base and everything else revolves on top of that.
Ron Amadeo
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The other side.
Ron Amadeo
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The top has buttons to turn off the camera and microphone and to adjust the volume.
Ron Amadeo
The specific hardware doesn’t really matter as these smart displays all use the same Amazon or Google software on different screen sizes, perhaps with one additional headline feature. I spent most of my testing time with the $249.99 Amazon Echo Show 10, which has a 10-inch screen and super cool rotation feature. There’s also the $64.99 stationary Echo Show 8, the $39.99 Echo Show 5, and if you really want to get wild there’s the $249.99 Echo Show 15, which has the form factor of a wall mounted picture frame.
| SPECIFICATIONS AT A GLANCE: Echo Show 10 | |
|---|---|
| SCREEN | 10.1-inch, 1200×800 LCD screen |
| Operating system | Fire operating system |
| CPU | Eight-core Mediatek MT8183 Four Cortex A73 cores and four Cortex A53 cores |
| GPU | Enable Mali-G72 |
| NETWORKS | Wi-Fi 5 (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth, Zigbee |
| CAMERA | 13 MP front camera |
| MATE | 251 × 230 × 172mm |
| WEIGHT | 2560 gr |
| Speakers | 2x 1 inch tweeters and a 3 inch woofer |
| STARTING PRICE | $249.99 (currently $185) |
| OTHER BENEFITS | It turns! |
The Echo Show 10’s party trick is its ability to spin around, a feature Amazon calls “Smart Motion.” The screen is mounted on a heavy round base, disguised as a large loudspeaker. There are three small speakers in the base, but there’s no room-shaking subwoofer, as you’d expect from the size. Much of the bottom is a weighted turntable with a wide electric motor that allows the entire body of the Echo Show 10 to rotate through 360 degrees.
The motor can “lock” and “unlock” the screen at different times. You can grab and move the screen at any time, which will turn off the motor and allow it to spin freely. The Show 10 weighs a whopping 5.5 pounds, so it’s not going anywhere. When you talk to it, the motor turns on and the screen rotates and points at you. You can also let it creepily follow you around the room via tracking from the front camera or control it remotely like a 360-degree security camera.
On the one hand, any additional functionality, such as the use of a 360-degree remote camera, is very welcome. On the other hand, mounting on a rotating base compromises the touchscreen experience somewhat. The mechanism that spins the screen has a lot of play, so even when the screen is supposed to be locked in one position, it never feels like a solid object under your finger taps. Every time you poke it, it will wiggle in one direction or the other.
