Amazon Echo Present 8 (third gen, 2023)
MSRP $150.00
“The Echo Present 8 stays a compelling good residence hub, regardless of solely modest upgrades for this technology.”
Execs
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Shockingly nice sound
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Handy dimension and type issue
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Sharp, shiny display
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Help for frequent streaming apps
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Excessive-quality digital camera
Cons
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Dated design
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Teeming with Amazon bloatware
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Poor video chat software program help
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No Z-Wave, Eero mesh, line-out jack
Most individuals know Alexa from Amazon’s too-inexpensive-to-resist Echo Dot audio system, however the plucky digital assistant additionally presides over a whole Echo empire. You should purchase an Echo Auto in your automotive, an Echo Hyperlink in your residence theater, and an Echo Pop for wherever with an outlet. Desire a display? The Echo Present line contains sizes from 5 to fifteen inches that allow you to watch TV, lookup recipes, and even videoconference from their built-in shows.
Amazon simply refreshed the Echo Present 8, a center youngster match for kitchens, workplaces and bedrooms, so as to add extra good residence savvy. However does it carry sufficient perks to make it well worth the $20 leap in worth to $150?
What’s new
I say “refreshed” and never “revamped” fairly deliberately. When you have any familiarity in any respect with the earlier two generations of the Echo Present 8, you will have bother telling the brand new one aside at first look. It sports activities nearly precisely the identical wedge form, the identical display, and the identical thick borders across the display, which we already criticized as dated after we reviewed the Echo Present 8 second-gen in 2021.
However just a few issues have modified. The digital camera now lives within the heart of the bezel as an alternative of the nook, the audio system now ship spatial audio, and it sports activities a built-in good residence hub. Which means you may join good residence gadgets powered by Zigbee, Matter, and Thread with out buying standalone hubs for them.
Oh, and there’s no less than one refined change Amazon hasn’t been waving a flag on: it not sports activities a 3.5mm line out for connecting to exterior audio system, a function that has additionally been quietly dropped from different new Echo gadgets.
Greater than you signed up for
Amazon will get further credit score for packaging the Echo Present 8 in nearly fully recyclable supplies, proper right down to utilizing paper fairly than plastic movie to wrap the gadget and together with zero Styrofoam. It’s not simply higher for the setting, nevertheless it’s approach much less obnoxious to get rid of.
After plugging it in with the included energy adapter, it would ask in your Wi-Fi and Amazon credentials earlier than strolling you thru some fundamental setup, like photographing your face from totally different angles to allow consumer recognition. You’ll get to make some enjoyable customizations (Would you favor nature photographs or summary artwork in your screensaver?) and also you’ll roll your eyes via a gauntlet of Amazon nags (Do you need to arrange Amazon Sidewalk? Would you like a free trial of Amazon Music Limitless? No? How about Audible?).
At idle, the Echo Present 8 shows a carousel of “residence content material,” from native information to new recipes. I recognize Amazon’s try to make the gadget helpful out of the field, however some questionable decisions jogged my memory of the bloat that comes on low-cost desktop PCs. Shampoo recommendations? Construct your individual unicorn with Alexa? Get outta right here with that. There are not any fewer than 45 of those turned on by default, and also you’ll must dig within the settings menu to disable those you don’t like.
Amazon additionally provides some preselected widgets, which take the type of shortcut icons within the higher proper. Click on the music icon, for instance, and it shows 4 advisable Spotify playlists to leap proper into. A widget gallery means that you can add new ones, however we discovered it a bit irritating that while you go so as to add your first one, you’ll get an error that your gadget already has the utmost variety of widgets, with no directions on the best way to take away them. Not an important consumer expertise.
Sound high quality
One of many greatest upgrades with the newest Echo Present 8 is help for spatial audio. Whereas this encompass know-how is most carefully related to Dolby Atmos, that’s not what Amazon is utilizing right here. The Echo Present 8 remixes extraordinary stereo tracks to imitate a encompass impact, just like the digital spatialization in high-end headphones just like the Bose QuietComfort Extremely. For those who’re skeptical of what a tool with simply two drivers can do to feign convincing encompass sound, I wouldn’t blame you. However you’d be shocked, as a result of the Echo Present 8 punches approach above its weight while you press play.
For those who blindfolded somebody and sat them in entrance of the Echo Present 8, I believe they’d be shocked to see the dimensions of the field while you pull off the veil. Seated simply 2 ft away from it on a desk, tracks from Amazon Music’s Better of Spatial Audio playlist sounded supernaturally vast, as if some results had been coming from left and proper audio system that don’t exist. And it doesn’t should be new, specifically mastered materials. I swear the snare drum on Pavement’s aptly titled Stereo was popping out of a wall 5 ft away.
Twin 2-inch drivers could not appear able to a lot, nevertheless it will get louder than you’d anticipate – my spouse needed to ask me to show it down when she was on one other ground in our home. Admittedly, its bass developments towards the “boomy” aspect at these volumes, however with drivers this dimension, asking extra is urgent towards the legal guidelines of physics. You’ll must step as much as the Echo Studio if you wish to rattle some drywall. Most non-audiophile customers will probably be thrilled with what you get at this dimension, notably the vocal readability.
Not all of this efficiency is new – we beloved the sound within the last-generation Echo Present 8, too, which has the identical driver setup. So whereas spatial audio is a pleasant perk, it’s not a prerequisite to rock out.
Display screen time
For anybody unacquainted with the Present idea, it’s most likely value working via what the display brings to the desk. New customers will instantly recognize the way it brings a visible component to stuff you had been already doing with an Echo speaker. Now you may see the title of the monitor that’s taking part in on Spotify, for example, or look at a multiday forecast chart, fairly than simply listening to Alexa recite the present temperature.
And make no mistake, this can be a good display. Although it’s the identical 1280 x 800 decision because the prior fashions, it appears to be like loads sharp at this dimension, and will get shiny sufficient to even be seen beneath skylights and subsequent to home windows. Like most telephones, it would additionally heat up the tone within the night to stop blue gentle from interfering together with your sleep.
With a display that sharp, some customers will naturally need to watch TV, and Amazon obliges with apps for Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video. On account of a spat with Google, YouTube has no app, however the included Silk browser is a simple sufficient workaround to entry it. Sure, there’s a browser on right here, too. With an 8-inch display, you most likely gained’t be too compelled to learn the New York Occasions from mattress, nevertheless it works in a bind for duties like pulling up a recipe.
The 13-megapixel webcam is excellent.
It’s also possible to videoconference on the Echo Present 8, just like the ill-fated Fb Portal. However there’s no help for frequent options like Zoom, Groups, or Skype; your supposed recipient should both personal a supported Echo gadget or have the Alexa app put in on their telephone. After (reluctantly) sharing my contacts with Alexa, I found that possibly one in 5 of them had the Alexa app enabled – a fairly restricted pool of parents to speak with. After testing, I can attest that the video high quality on the 13-megapixel webcam is excellent, however with out help for the instruments most individuals use, I worry it gained’t get as a lot use because it ought to.
Packing help for Matter, Thread, and Zigbee into the Echo Present 8 is a pleasant perk for good residence fanatics, however Z-Wave is a notable omission. I used to be wanting ahead to ditching my Samsung good hub till I spotted {that a} single Z-Wave lock necessitated maintaining it round. This case gained’t be unfamiliar to anybody who has been accumulating good gadgets for some time. And there’s one different curious lacking function: The Echo Present 8 doesn’t work as an Eero mesh router extender as most different new Echos do. Even the $50 Echo Dot does that.
How new is new sufficient?
For those who’ve been dreaming of a display to complement your Alexafied family, the Echo Present 8 makes loads of sense. Large enough to eat media (in contrast to the Echo Present 5) and sufficiently small to suit nearly wherever (in contrast to the Echo Present 10), there’s a Goldilocks high quality to this dimension.
However when Amazon counts transferring the digital camera to the middle as a “new function,” we have now to concede that the updates on faucet listed below are fairly unambitious. Spatial audio and the good residence hub are each nice-to-haves, however frankly, there’s no approach we’d spend $150 on them when the earlier mannequin now
sells for $70
. Possibly that’s an unfair comparability, as a result of the final mannequin is a steal at that worth, however in case you’re trying to purchase one in every of these proper now, you must completely purchase the older mannequin.
For those who’re much less involved with worth, or that sale has dried up by the point you learn this, the Echo Present 8’s sonic chops is probably the most compelling motive to expire and purchase one now.
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