The Amazon Echo Show 5: A Smart Display for the Ages

As I unwrapped the Amazon Echo Show 5, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and curiosity about this new smart display from Amazon. With a price tag of $90, it's an entry-level smart display that aims to compete with the likes of Google's Nest Hub and Lenovo's Smart Clock. But how does it stack up against its competitors? Let's dive in and find out.

Upon first glance, the Echo Show 5 is indeed smaller than Amazon's other smart displays, but it has a similar shape and design that makes it easy to use and navigate. The device comes with a 5.5-inch touchscreen, which might seem like a bit of a compromise compared to some of its competitors. However, as I'll explore in more detail later on, the screen may be just large enough to make watching videos and looking at pictures worthwhile.

One of my initial questions about the Echo Show 5 was whether the touchscreen would be big enough to make watching videos and looking at pictures an enjoyable experience. And to answer that question, it definitely can! The device allows you to load content from various sources, including your car's infotainment system or streaming services like Netflix. But is it gonna be worth while? That's something I'll have to find out as I spend more time with the device.

To get a better understanding of how the Echo Show 5 works, I brought it to my home network and plugged it in for the basics. As expected, it works quite similarly to an Amazon Echo smart speaker – just give it voice commands, and you're good to go! However, there's one notable difference: setting up and customizing the device is done entirely from the device itself, rather than through a separate app like with some of its competitors.

For instance, setting up Wi-Fi requires no app at all; it can be done right from the home screen. And when picking your home screen, you get access to an incredibly detailed settings menu that allows for a high degree of customization. This is particularly noticeable compared to Google's Nest Hub, which does most of its setup and customizations through the Google Home app.

Another new feature on the Echo Show 5 is this control panel that can be accessed by swiping right from the home screen. It's an upgrade over the previous model in that you now have full access to all of your routines and devices at once – it’s pretty cool! I still prefer the Nest Hub's room-by-room organization and their shortcut control panel, but these are subjective preferences.

The Echo Show 5 also features improved integration with Amazon services, including Alexa. This makes for a seamless experience when using voice commands or accessing various apps on the device. However, some of its capabilities may be limited compared to other smart displays on the market.

One key thing to note is that while the device does have access to YouTube through voice commands, it doesn’t seem to support full-fledged streaming from the site as some other smart displays can.

When it comes to sound quality, one major difference between the Echo Show 5 and its competitors lies in the artificial boosting of bass levels. This makes for an impressive listening experience on acoustic tracks but might slightly alter how music sounds at higher volumes compared to some competing devices.

To better understand just how these two smart displays compare, I ran a quick comparison test with my favorite songs. Let me tell you that while there are certainly differences between the Echo Show 5 and Google's Nest Hub – such as increased bass for certain genres of music – there's also a clear distinction in sound quality at high volumes.

For those interested in their audio setup, this is worth noting. The Echo Show 5 has its own set of strengths when it comes to acoustics compared to the Nest Hub.

After spending some time with the Echo Show 5 and weighing up all the pros and cons, my experience has left me with mixed feelings about the overall product. On one hand, I do appreciate how much thought went into making this smart display – from its compact design to the detailed settings menu that makes it so easy to customize.

On the other hand, there are a few areas where it falls short of expectations – like seeing voice commands spelled out at the top of the screen or being able to see snooze times. Overall, while I think the Echo Show 5 has some notable improvements over Amazon's older smart displays and can be recommended for those on a budget, I wouldn’t say that it’s quite as good as Google’s Nest Hub – which remains my personal favorite.

That said, if you're looking to pick just one device for your bedroom, I would suggest the Echo Show 5. It's an excellent smart display with features like a good smart alarm clock and overall design.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is the Amazon echo show five its amazon's entry-level smart display it costs ninety bucks and it just got here this morning I'm excited to pop it open and see what it can do it's a pretty important product for Amazon Google's actually been winning as far as the smart display battlefield the nest hub is great they have a Lenovo smart clock that's great and the echo sho good but a little clicky now they're taking this one and they're combining the best stuff of the Lenovo smart clock with the nest hub we just got it in so we're gonna take it out of the box and take a look so it's open it is much smaller than Amazon's other smart displays look at this so it actually has a somewhat similar shape and design so it's called the Amazon echo show v not because it's the fifth echo shows you might intuitively believe but because it has a 5.5 inch touchscreen now one of my questions about this is if the touchscreen is gonna be big enough to make watching videos and looking at pictures worth while you can do that on this screen but is it gonna be an enjoyable experience that's something we're gonna have to find out so I'm gonna load this into my car obviously that'll be a laborious task and then I'm gonna take it to the sea net smart home where I'm gonna get testing because there's not much more I can find out about this thing year you know I need to plug it in and get rolling so we brought this thing to the CNET smart home plugged it in for the basics it works a lot like an Amazon echo smart speaker you can give it all kinds of voice commands and then it has a touchscreen similar to previous Amazon echo shows one of the first things I noticed about this compared to say the Google Nest hub is that you do a lot of the setup and you do the customization right from the device itself from setting up Wi-Fi from picking your home screen you have this really detailed settings menu right in here whereas with the nest hub you do that in the Google home app so it's a bit more of a self-sufficient device one of the new things with the echo show 5 is this control panel that you access here from swiping right you could access some of your smart home devices previously but now you can access all of your routines and all of your devices and doing that allows you to see them by groups see them by device types it's pretty cool I still think I prefer the nest hubs room-by-room organization and their shortcut control panel but we're talking about personal preferences here the echo so v has definitely made improvements on this front other things to know here the show v has a 3.5 millimeter output jack so you can connect it to your own sound system the camera that you use to make video calls you can now cover with a physical shutter which is handy for a device you might want to put next to your bed you can check on the footage of a variety of smart home cans including the ring video doorbell and if someone's at your door you can actually answer it right from the show v and talk to the person and tell them to drop off the package one of the coolest new features of the show five is a sunrise alarm fifteen minutes before your scheduled time the screen will start getting brighter with a sunrise animation to ease you out of your sleep we this only works on alarms between 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. so if you work the night shift you're out of luck okay so I've gotten a chance to spend some time with the show 5 at this point and I'm seeing how some of these features stack up in particular this ambient light feature so Amazon talked about how they're rolling out a new ambient sensor here and obviously they're trying to stack up to what the nest hub does with photos so the nest hub has this sensor that adapts both the brightness and the warmth so that when you're scrolling through pictures as your screensaver or your ambient mode it looks like a physical photo in a room it's one of our favorite features of the nest hub and so the Amazon echo show 5 is obviously trying to replicate that to an extent it is cool you can put a little bit more photos on the show 5 but as you can see clearly it's not quite as adaptive it doesn't respond with the same level of dexterity as the nest hub the echo show 5 actually has better mics than the nest hub it heard me more clearly from a distance and moreover background noise but the nest hubs still better at walking you through recipes it breaks down the steps and scrolls through them more fluidly while keeping more of the info you need front and center on the screen if you need a place to eat the nest hub can show you directions and the show v can't if you want to watch videos the nest hub has access to a little streaming site known as YouTube the echo show 5 doesn't at least not with voice commands one of the ways that the full-sized echo show was better than the Google Nest hub was sound quality it was bigger and it sounded like it but now the echo show 5 is obviously much smaller so can it still keep up or even beat the Google Nest hub when playing music yes enough take a listen I thought my you just from the color sound song but I just think of you even when they're set to the same volume you can hear that the show 5 is a little bit louder than the nest hub that's because it's artificially boosting its sound by raising up the acoustic and the bass levels that makes it sound really good on acoustic tracks but it makes the nest hub sound a little bit clearer on more complex tracks the show 5 is also going to distort just a little bit at high volumes especially on those complex tracks but for most of what you're going to be listening to the show 5 will probably edge out the nest hub just barely I've got a few nitpicks about the show 5 - I wish you can see your voice command spelled out at the top as you can on the nest hub these bezels on the side when you're watching a video make a small picture even smaller you can't customize snooze times the screen is a little too bright for a dark room Amazon introduced some how-to videos for the show five from wikiHow which are cool but they're just the intro videos which aren't enough if you're trying to complete a complex task so I have plenty of gripes and complaints and I don't think the Amazon echo show 5 is as good as the Google Nest hub but it's still pretty good I like this cute little guy and honestly if you have to pick one for your bedroom I'd recommend the $90 Amazon echo show 5 over the $130 Google nest hub it's a good smart display plus a good smart alarm clock but overall the nest hub is still better Amazon made a lot of improvements here especially over there older smart displays and the echo show 5 is an interesting alternative to the Google Nest hub even if it's not quite better you\n"