We own all 3 Amazon devices , but we really can ' t recommend you buy the Dot . It does not respond nearly as well as the Echo , and the sound quality is poor . If you are planning on connecting it to good speakers , then the only issue is the IoT interaction . If your main use case is music , then you may not care if you don ' t plan to take advantage of any of the free skills . Still you will be much happier with an Echo . As to your specific questions , connecting to your dorm ' s wifi is easy , but the worse the bandwidth , the worse the response . What does not super fast specifically mean you could run Speedtest to check . Except for the initial setup , no , you never have to go back to your phone , although some apps do take advantage of the cards . For instance , our game Hangman shows you the letters you have guessed , what letters are left , and fills in the Hangman scaffold as you go . Not necessary , as Alexa will tell you if you already guessed a letter and how many guesses you have left , but very visual people like the assist . You only have to connect your Spotify account once , and you will have music on demand . Hope this helps !