Amazon Echo Show (India) First Impressions: Most interesting Smart-home assistant

10-inch vivid and responsive HD display

I have tested a variety of smart speakers from Google, Amazon and even LG but the Echo Show seems like an entirely new product. It raises the bar in smart-home assistant's category and the credit goes to the 10-inch HD display that turns the smart speaker experience into a visual treat. The response to your voice commands can now be seen on the big display which makes the overall experience quite intuitive. You can ask the Echo show to start your daily routine by informing you about the weather, news briefings, traffic updates, and a lot more. The same is displayed on the big screen which feels quite satisfying. The news briefings fetched from service providers are also accompanied by videos. And while the display only sports HD resolution and is surrounded by thick bezels on all four sides, it seems vibrant and fairly bright from a distance. It is worth mentioning that the Echo show is not a tablet and it's mostly going to sit on a table placed farther from where you will consume the content on the screen. In that case, the HD screen serves the job wonderfully.

No Native YouTube App support

In the absence of the native YouTube app support, you are left with videos displayed via web results fetched from Silk and Firefox web browsers. This is all due to the fact that Google had blocked the device's access to the service, citing violations of its terms of service. Google itself produces smart speakers and it's just a matter of time that the search engine giant introduces a smart screen speaker with built-in YouTube app support for videos.

Nevertheless, you can stream videos on Echo Show which look quite crisp and are supported by brilliant audio. The sad part, the product has a very limited catalog of videos to play on the HD display. Echo Show struggled to fetch the correct videos from the web in the absence of native YouTube app support. Besides, I am still trying to stream Prime Videos on Echo Show but the Amazon Alexa app just couldn't let me play the content. The TV & Video section in settings always fail to show the list of video service providers. Thankfully, you have the option to access music videos through direct integration with Hungama video service.

How’s Voice based commands response?

Despite the massive 10-inch HD display, the voice is going to be the medium to interact with this smart product from Amazon. The smart screen is powered by Amazon's Alexa assistant which is pretty smart and can intelligently answer all your questions. Install the Alexa app on your smartphone, configure it and you are all set. Amazon offers thousands of skills to make smart speaker experience intuitive and you can also create new skills via Alexa Skill Blueprints.

As far as voice recognition is concerned, it is pretty good as the Echo Show features 8 microphones in total, 4 at front and 4 at the top edge for effective voice recognition. The smart screen was able to recognize my voice and replied with the correct response from more than 8-feet away. However, if you are streaming audio at maximum volume, you will have a tough time interacting with Echo Show. The smart screen just couldn't hear me shouting to change the track or perform any other operation even though I was sitting just three to four feet away. In the end, I had to lower the volume manually from the physical buttons placed at the top edge of the display to direct smart screen to perform other functions. Honestly, this is the issue with most of the smart assistant based speakers. When the audio is streamed at maximum volume, the product fails to understand and respond to the voice commands.

Sound: Brilliant audio delivery

The marquee feature of the Amazon Echo Show is its sound delivery. The smart screen is backed by dual, side-firing 2-inch Neodymium drivers and a passive bass radiator all tuned by Dolby. The audio is very loud and can easily fill up a big room. I used the Echo Show in a 17x11 feet room and the sound delivery was simply amazing. By default, the audio settings are bit bass-heavy but you can tune the audio as per your requirement from the built-in equalizer. I noticed minimal distortion even at higher volumes while playing the music of different genres. Echo Show can play music from services such as Amazon Prime Music, Saavn, Hungama Music, Gaana or TuneIn. Spotify also works but you need to have a premium subscription to stream audio through Echo Show. Besides, you can also set up multi-room music to play music across compatible Echo devices throughout your home.

Echo Show also boasts a 5MP front-facing camera that can capture selfies, allows you to make video calls with other Alexa powered Echo devices and also with Skype users.

Price and Availability

As far as price and availability are concerned, Echo Show is priced at Rs. 22,990 and can be purchased from Amazon India and select retail stores across the country. These offers are available on the purchase of Echo Show:

Buy an Echo Show and get a Philips Hue bulb at no additional cost, offer available on Amazon.in and retail stores Get Flat Rs. 2,000 cashback on purchase via Citibank debit and credit cards Purchase an Echo Show for as low as Rs. 1,917 per month via No-cost EMI across leading banks

Verdict

Amazon Echo Show is a promising smart home product. It beautifully combines the good audio with a big massive HD display that serves as a visual medium for a variety of tasks such as music, video, news, weather, cooking recopies and a lot more. The smart hub integration also comes quite handy if you have multiple smart home products. There are some caveats such as no native YouTube support and limited third-party app support but the product offers something for everyone. We will talk at length about the Echo Show performance in our comprehensive review.