Echo Show 5 (2nd Gen, 2021 release) - Deep Sea Blue bundle with Blink Mini

I wanted to really give this a test before I reviewed it, so I bought this about 2 weeks ago. My thought was to give it to my parents (older) who have issues with typing on a little screen. My mother has learned how to use a cell phone, but my father gave up with technology several years ago. I had also heard that devices such as this were great for keeping on your desk at home, asking how to spell something, doing simple math, and of course listening to music.To make full use of this device you must have Prime. If you have Amazon's extended music (unlimited) it would probably be better. Since I don't have it, about half of the times I request a song, it tells me that I can get it on unlimited, for only $X a month... But after offering me that unlimited, it often plays that song. When you do ask for a song, it plays that (if available) and then starts one of its radio stations. It has a wide variety of music, even music to calm your dog or cat (my dog likes his, the cat could care less, typical).For movies/ TV it will play prime movies, and you can probably buy the movies that you can rent or buy from Amazon. The problem is that you have a 5 inch screen, about the same size as many cell phones. The sound quality on this is decent, not great, not bad, better than my cell phone. But if I want to watch a movie on a 5 inch screen, my cell phone is right there for that, with the same selection of movies available.This does not have a battery included (I ended up buying a base with a battery). If I wanted to move it from one room to another, unplugging it caused it to shut off, and then has to restart when you reach the next plug. So if you are watching a movie and want to move from the living room to the kitchen (to start cooking dinner for example), without a battery base, sold separately, you unplug it and then it has to restart. It does not take long to restart, but then have to find what you were watching and re-start it. The plug is a old fashioned block plug with a round piece that goes into the device. With everything on USB or USB C now, I am surprised they keep their specific cord (but without the battery base, you have to have it plugged in, so probably will not lose it).I have heard that Amazon is shutting down, or scaling back its Alexa division. This is too bad as the voice recognition is very good. About 90% of the time it understands what I am asking, and most of the time can find something close to that. But I guess the idea is that people would use it for shopping. I don't, as I want to compare products, see what the costs are, look at the size, read the reviews. With the way prices change, I want to make sure I am getting the best deal not just the same product from the same vendor, regardless of price.And after two weeks, I am still trying to figure out Alexa skills. As far as I can tell, these are like apps. Many are free, and you can just ask your Echo to do them. There are some that you have to go on to the Alexa app you must install on your smart phone to enable, and there are some that you have to pay for. There are sometimes ads that pop up on the screen, so I saw one for Jeopardy, it gave me a few questions, and then said "And you can play more for only $X a month... " So I could see you getting lots of fees if someone is using this and does not listen carefully or care about the $3 a month here and $9 a month there. I have run into a couple magazine articles that suggest echo things you should try and found a few that are not available on the echo show. Kind of like some apps are not available for your phone I guess.There are also many things you can do, which I have not made use of, such as video calls between two shows, or linking them with echo speakers to "drop in." It is a little concerning to have someone else have the ability to "drop in" on your echo show, sometimes I don't want others to see what I am doing. And how secure is this? The camera has a little slide to go over the camera, and the speaker does have a button you can shut off. It does have a neat thing for your elderly parents, where it has to check in every day, or it calls you. It, like several other things, requires a monthly subscription. There is also one that hears breaking glass or a smoke alarm and connects to you (or maybe you can set it to call?). Again, a monthly fee. I could see it being useful for an elderly person, if they fall and are still within voice of their Alexa, it could still try to connect with you, but I believe that is all though Amazon, so if my Alexa is not open on my phone, or I don't have an echo device open, might not work. As a 50 year old, I am having some issues trying to figure this all out, so don't see my 80+ year old parents being able to figure a lot of this out.So I suspect that this will either go to my parents, or stay with me and be used for listening to music/ news and simple tasks (like set a timer for 5 minutes from now). I will continue to try to figure out the calling features, as I think that could be helpful. Voice controls for people with eye issues, or fat fingers, are nice (but if you have eye issues, you don't want to be trying to see a 5 inch screen). It certainly has potential, but if Amazon is shutting down that division, it may not be developed to its fullest potential. And with the recent advances in AI, the technology in the echo may become quickly obsolete. But at time of purchase it was $35, so certainly not too expensive to get and play around with.

This is my first Amazon "Alexa" device and overall it does what I want and I am pleased with it. It was quite easy to set up and the display options are nice. I must say that I do not plan to use the special features (recipe recommendations, lifestyle info, daily routine, etc.) so I have most of them turned off. When I ask for specific music, though, the offerings are generally good. My only real complaint has to do with the adaptive brightness feature. I love how the display dims at night when the room is dark, then gradually brightens with the morning light. HOWEVER, I have found that once an alarm is set and goes off in the early morning, the adaptive brightness ceases to function. That means that if one person (me) wants to remain in bed after the other person has gotten up and left the room, the display remains bright even though the room is still dark. It no longer dims back to the way it was during the night. I have tried turning on the light briefly to trick it out of "alarm mode", and this has worked once or twice but not usually. The only thing that has really worked for me so far is to pull the cord from the back of the device and plug it back in to reset it. It then goes back to normal mode, with the adaptive brightness feature working again. I have contacted Amazon Customer Service about this and they very kindly sent me a replacement but this issue remains the same. Well, I guess if the biggest drawback is that I have to pull the plug on it every time my husband gets up at 5:30, I can live with it. It would be nice, though, if the designers could figure out how to allow the adaptive brightness feature to work after the alarm has gone off!

I wanted an alarm clock that allowed Alexa Show features when I wanted them.It is not possible to disable three features:1) “Try This…” suggestions - See actual images shared.2) Periodic dimming of the screen to black.3) Red Line activated across the screen when microphone is muted.None of these are desirable if you want a bedside alarm clock, or just a clock, when not using the device for other purposes.Who wants to look at your clock at 2:00AM to check the time and see “Try Alexa Song Quiz” when you only want to know what time it is?- Yes, you can temporarily stop Suggestions and "Try This" by telling "Alexa, disable suggestions", but it is only temporary.- "Try this..." is not considered by Amazon to be a direct commercial or advertisement, but it is "Sponsored".- The screen's slow fade-to-black only lasts a few seconds, and randomly occurs every 2 to 20 minutes. Unnecessary distraction that kept catching my eye.- A solid red line is activated across the screen when you disable the microphone and voice recognition. This might be a convenient reminder for some people, but I found it overly distracting.I did invest hours of time to identify a solution and finally confirmed with a call to Amazon that these specific features can’t be permanently disabled.The process of setting an alarm time is more complex than a smart phone. A smart phone is more intuitive to allow quick activation of any previously used alarm times, or quickly setting a new time.Overall, the ongoing rolling "Try this..." feature is too distracting for me, for any location. It is designed catch your eye to pull you to use the device. I only want a clock, and for it to respond when I want it to respond. You can disable many of the other features that are active by default, with a bit of effort.The above functionality was a priority for me before using the other beneficial features of video and camera, which is exciting if you don't find the above mentioned features distracting. It is possible to turn the face of the device away from your living area, and only turn it around when you want to use the camera & video features. I was optimistic about testing the devices as a simple secondary surveillance camera/monitor.I love Alexa products without screens and my heart is hoping the distracting features of the Show will be fixed in later versions.

Great device. Very clear full colour screen. Good size screen, touch screen works great with fingers or stylus, easy volume and camera privacy adjustments. Use the included power cord or one that has a "C" style end. Sound is very good even for music. Does everything they say it will. Great size for a bedside table. Highly recommend!!!

Le falta mostrar videos con la app de Amazon music como la del celular o la de web. A veces no entiende las canciones que quiere uno escuchar, muy limitadas las listas de rock and roll de los 60's, tienes que decirle específicamente qué albums son, no tiene forma de agregar a las listas los álbumes completos.

Se instala facilismo y es muy práctica para automatizar tu casa

Cumplió más de lo esperado mis expectativas, me encanta mi Alexa y es fácil de usar

Definitely a good buy and I would recommend.