Echo Show 10 (3rd Generation) — First Impressions

A few days ago, we were able to officially announce the Echo Show 10’s arrival in Australia. It’s got some cool feature additions and tweaks over the last generation. While this isn’t the full review, we’ve had the Echo Show 10 for a few days now and it’s time to share our first impressions.

Presentaiton and functions

This is a big smart screen and not just the screen, the actual footprint need this has is remarkably big, but with good reason. The screen is front mounted on a good Echo speaker, which also had a motorised swivel on it. That swivel — paired with the front-facing camera — allows the device to follow you around the room. You can set this to occur either all the time, during selected activities like streaming or only on command. This can be set up within the limits of your available space easily to ensure the device isn’t damaged.

There are other nice little features included in there too, such as the screen being able to tilt to suit where the Echo is stationed. This is from a very slight downward tilt to a near 45 degree upward-facing angle. This viewing angle versatility makes the screen visible from almost any angle in almost any workspace.

One area that really made me happy in the early stages of this review, is having Firefox on an easily accessible smart display. It’s not for everything I do every day and I certainly wouldn’t try working from home on it, but a quick web query or (since Amazon and Google don’t play well together) playing a bit of YouTube is easy.

Easy to access, installed apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime and ABC iview takes the Echo Show from being useful to a valued piece of home tech. In the few days that it’s been on the test bench, it’s seen more streaming media than any other device in my house.

All of that would be lost of the display was garbage and it really isn’t… I would happily say that the screen is really well calibrated for colour saturation and the dynamic backlighting is pretty much on the mark for ambient light. It’s easy to read, the video playback quality is great and it’s just a generally good experience.

Sound plays a part in the experience

One of the area’s Google’s original Google Home speakers and many of (until the Nest Audio) their other hardware items have been disappointing in is sound. We mentioned earlier in this article that the screen is perched atop a good Echo speaker, it’s actually really good. Not Sonos good, but to my ears approaching the level offered by the Nest Audio. The sound is crisp and clean, lacking the punch I want to the bass, but if you really want that you could easily pair it with an Echo sub.

Despite the lack of bass, it’s pretty hard to fault to about three quarter volume, which is where you start to notice the bass absence. But even powering past that level, you don’t get the piercing overtones that some speakers produce when they’re simply driven past their capabilities.

Lots more to explore

This was intended as little more than a quick first look and impressions of the Echo Show 10 (3rd Generation) and as you can tell, it’s pretty impressive. We’ll be spending a lot more time with this over the next couple of weeks and you can expect a more in-depth look at some of the feature in a few weeks time.

What questions have you got about the hardware or feature set of the new Echo Show 10?