Amazon Echo (3rd Gen) review: The best Alexa smart speaker for the money - shercarly1965

Amazon Echo 3rd Gen Source: Jeramy Johnson / Android Central

When I say the words "Amazon Echo," what's the first image that pops into your head? I bet that despite five long time of rising products and iterations to existing ones, the iconic Amazon Echo image (or even, dare I say information technology, that of Alexa herself) is this one below — the original, black, plasticky tube. Heck, I write about Echoes for my Job, and this is still the image that pops into my head when I hear that word. Acknowledged, it is in all probability because that original Echo from fivesome years ago still sits prominently in my living room and still gets victimised every twenty-four hour period.

Amazon Echo 1st Gen Author: Jeramy President Andrew Johnson / Android Central

Amazon has long since moved happening from this original strain element to create an entire business of smart speakers and screens under the Sound reflection brand make in the half-decade since the original Reverberate's launch. Yet despite all that design and change, the company has unbroken the "regular" Echo in the lineup (or at to the lowest degree, the original name). Last refreshed with the second genesis in 2020, Amazon subdued dropped an update to the Echo that I think is not simply its best yet, merely arguably the best buy for any Echo device. Lucky require you say? Well, good discover me out.

The sweet spot

Amazon Echo 3rd Gen Twilight Blue official render

Amazon Ring (3rd Gen)

Bottom Ancestry Brush up or rehash, the Echo (3rd Gen) is a great mid-medium-sized smart loudspeaker system for the terms. The audio and styling are much improved, and information technology fits well into its spot in the overall Echo device lineup.

Pros

Much better speakers than past versions
Softer, classier styling
Five color options including Product Red and Twilight Blue
Still keeps classic UI features like buttons, illuminating ring, and 3.5 mm audio output

Cons

Not a huge spring wise in innovation
No assembled-in intelligent hub
No display

So what's different? Specification comparison

3 Echos together Source: Jeramy Johnson / Android Central

Before I nose dive into my review articl connected the third generation Echo, let's take a quick search at the glasses to see how it matches improving to the version it's replacing, the Echo (2nd Gen), and what it's emulating, the Echo Plus (2nd Gen).

	Reverberation (3rd Gen)	Echo (2nd Gen)	Echo Plus (2nd Gen)
Size	5.8" x 3.9" x 3.9"	5.8" x 3.4" x 3.4"	5.8" x 3.9" x 3.9"
Weight	27.5 oz	29 oz	27.5 oz
Far-field Microphones	Yes	Yes	Yes
Speakers	.8" tweeter and 3" woofer	.6" tweeter and 2.5" woofer	.8" tweeter and 3" woofer
Dolby Processing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Delineate-extinct with 3.5 mm cable or Bluetooth	Yes	Yes	Yes
Smart House Controls	Yes with Alexa	Yes with Alexa	Yes with Alexa and built-in Zigbee hub
Music Streaming	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pair Multiple for Stereoscopic picture Sound	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free audio calls to the U.S., Mexico, and Canada	Yes	Yes	Yes
Finishes	Fabric (5 colors - Charcoal, Heather Gray, Sandstone, Twilight Puritanical, Cartesian product Red)	Fabric or Veneer (6 colors - Charcoal, Heather Grey, Sandstone, Walnut, Oak tree, Silver)	Fabric (3 colours - Charcoal, Heather Gray, Sandstone)

So summing up the graph here, the updates from Gen 2 to Gen 3 go like this: Virago sorta-rather rebranded the Echo Plus (2nd Gen) as the new Repeat. IT pretty much borrowed the design words from the Repeat Plus; the utterer apparatus is essentially the selfsame between the cardinal devices. Nigh the exclusively substantive difference is that the Echo (3rd Gen) doesn't take over a built-in Zigbee hub (and it's debatable if that matters Beaver State not).

The Echo (3rd Gen) is basically a rebranded Echo Plus (2nd Gen), and that's alright.

Now, put on't get Pine Tree State amiss. Copying these traits from the Echo Summation (Gen 2) are improvements to the regular Echo (3rd Gen) in every style. They are not, however, revolutionary. It's more than like Amazon distinct to straighten and simplify the Echo utterer line of products. Now the Resound Dot (3rd Gen and with Clock), Echo, and Echo Studio share a a lot more unified design language.

Amazon Sound reflection (3rd Gen) What I like

3 Echo amigos Beginning: Jeramy Johnson / Android Central

A raft of what I like virtually the Echo (3rd Gen) applies to all Echo devices. I like how easy they are to set up in the Alexa app. I like how Amazon is taking customer privacy Sir Thomas More seriously and focusing on features like physical mute and television camera buttons and giving us easier access to our recordings systematic to review or edit them. I like how there are tens of thousands of Skills that you can tap into to make Alexa even more effective. I like that you can relate fundamentally any music service you deprivation and information technology's processed as a first-class app happening the Echo. I similar that you can easily produce your own routines, automations, and eventide Blueprints for Alexa skills. And I wish that information technology's such a great tool for controlling your smart home.

But what specifically approximately this new gimmick coif I like such? Well, IT comes toss off to the improvements in substance and dash.

Every clock time a manufacturer comes out with a new speaker system, you can bet the first matter they're going to enunciat is how much better information technology sounds than the last speaker. I'll take that I'm not the biggest audiophile, and sometimes I just can't really tell the difference from model to model, manufacturer to manufacturer. However, in that instance I can definitely hear a significant improvement from the previoius generations.

As you can hear from these amateurish recordings (meritless for the hand wobble!), U2's Plume definitely sounds better on the Echo (3rd Gen). The 2nd Gen is not as full audible, and piece loud, the 1st Gen is very tinny (sounds like information technology's in a can).

Aside from the improved sound that the Echo (3rd Gen) inherited from the Echo Plus (2nd Gen), the other thing that it took from its older sibling that I really like is the gross styling. While the Replication (2nd Gen) moved inaccurate from the hard, cold plastic look of the 1st Gen to a fabric masking, the Echo (3rd Gen) has a softer, less tubular shape to IT, and now comes in five distinguishable colours to suit a variety of tastes. The Fusain, Heather Gray, and Sandstone variants are classics that throne blend in to exactly about any space, while the Product Red and Twilight Blue are attractive finishes that bequeath definitely appeal to those with more venturesome tastes.

I also like that Amazon is sticking with what works in the user interface section. It has kept the loveable (to me) LED light tintinnabulation, as well as the tangible buttons up top to control mass, mute the microphone, and the action clitoris. To me, the expect of this I/O is almost equally iconic equally the classic iPod clickwheel, and just as useful. I Bob Hope that Amazon never takes these drug user interface elements off (especially the light ring!).

Amazon Repeat (3rd Gen) What I don't like

Echo 3rd Gen in hand Source: Jeramy Johnson / Android Central

As I said in my brushup of the Echo Dot with Time, I really don't have that many complaints here because, frankly, there isn't that practically "present" to get laid upbound. Amazon does a nice job nailing the basics in creating an affordable smart speaker, and that's on the button what this is. Plus, it's fifty-fifty more low-priced thanks to loads of discounts during the vacation period.

Amazon Echo 3rd Gen Product Red Seed: Amazon

But as long as I've got a platform here from which to vent, I power also go ahead and lay out a few insignificant frustrations or things I'd like to see updated in the incoming iteration of the classic Reverberation.

With exception of Sandstone and Dusk Blue, I don't think Amazon should use the white culture top for the polychrome Echo devices. I love this Product Red color in (and totally believe in this constitution's mission, by the way), merely I don't suchlike how the entire package looks on the Echo (3rd Gen). I complained about this on the Plum colour variant of the latest Replication Dot (3rd Gen), because the contrast is too severe in my opinion, particularly when you tote up a third color in the LED light ring to the mix.

Dissimilar the Echo Asset (2nd Gen), this device does not get a Zigbee smart hub controller well-stacked-in. Is that really a outsized deal? I'm not so sure. Thomas More and more smart plate devices oeuvre with Virago's Echos, Google's Nest Hubs, and Apple's Homekit without the need for a bridge operating theatre hub of about kindly, and with Virago introducing its Certifiable for Humans initiative, connecting these devices to your Echo should get even easier.

I would've liked to birth seen a version of this Echo with a constitutional LED clock, similar to the Echo Dot with Clock. Perhaps IT could even have a slightly larger display than that on the dot, or be in multi-colored LEDs, operating theater personify able to display many kinds of notifications... or each of the above! Alas, that's not to beryllium found connected the Echo (3rd Gen), simply maybe we'll see information technology at extraordinary point in the future on the Echo (4th Gen)?

Amazon Echo (3rd Gen) Should you buy information technology?

Echo 3rd Gen lifestyle Source: Jeramy Lyndon Baines Johnson / Humanoid Central

Yes! No really, you should get this if you require to upgrade an old Echo, operating theater if you're looking for the best Alexa verbalizer to put in your syntactic category space. It's big enough to fill a adequate-crow-sized room with reasoned, just decreased enough that information technology's not leaving to wedge out like a sore thumb amongst your other decor. Nonnegative, it comes in 5 really nice colors!

I really and rightfully believe the Echo (3rd Gen) is a good merchandise. It's well-built, it doesn't try to be anything IT's not, and it's still in the "affordable" range at even at its pregnant-price (though we've seen IT discounted by nearly half-cost recently). For the money, there really isn't a better mid-sized cagy speaker around.

Time to upgrade

Amazon Echo 3rd Gen Twilight Blue official render

Amazon Echo (3rd gen)

Better fathom and cooler colors.

The 3rd gen Echo is built for better sound with a softer, plusher look up to that comes in four colors, including the soft new Twilight Blue and a firey Product Red.

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