A year after Amazon introduced its first smart display, the Echo Show, Google has responded with its own version: the Google Home Hub. It's good timing, since the 2018 version of the Echo Show ships out to customers on Thursday. These smart displays are still relatively new, but what they can do goes way beyond the first iterations of virtual voice-assistants, which more than 60 million people already have in their homes. So whether you're one of those people and are considering an upgrade, or are looking to buy your first smart display, here's how the Amazon Echo Show compares to the Google Home Hub .<doc-sep>MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. – The battle of the video speakers begins in earnest today. Google officially released the Home Hub, a $149 digital photo frame, YouTube video player, and visual recipe reciter (among other things) that looks to take on the second edition of the $229 Amazon Echo Show, which has been in release but is sold out through Nov. 5. The Show looks to bring the popular Alexa personal assistant into the video age, with live TV from Hulu, video-on-command from Amazon Prime Video, visual recipes, digital photos and Alexa smarts. The two are expected to be among the most heavily marketed new holiday products. Last season, Amazon's entry level Dot was its best seller of the holidays, and Google discounted the Home Mini speaker so heavily it caught up to Amazon in market share. They will also compete with Facebook's Portal, which starts at $199, and will be released in November. So how do the two new video display units compare? Size The Show is 10 inches, up from the 7-inch version originally released in 2017, and not available for sale now, compared to 7-inches for the Hub. The Show screen is bigger and brighter. Advantage: Amazon Video Home Hub has both the world's biggest video site – YouTube – and all those millions and millions of videos, as well as YouTube TV, the cable TV alternative that charges $40 monthly for broadcast and cable TV channels without the bulk of a cable subscription. Amazon has Prime Video and the original shows like the Emmy-winning Magnificent Mrs. Maisel and Bosch, Hulu's $40-monthly cable alternative Hulu with Live TV, and content from sites like Daily Motion and SideChef. Google won't allow the YouTube app on Show because of a corporate spat. Amazon countered with a workaround (calling up YouTube on an Amazon browser), but getting specific video clips on command is very spotty. Advantage: Google Music Amazon offers songs from the large Amazon Music collection and lets you view the lyrics while you listen. That's cool, but Home Hub has YouTube, and you get to see the video of the song on a device built for video. Amazon has occasional music videos, and, of course, you can try to find the song within YouTube and the Amazon browser. Advantage: Google Books Amazon's large collection of e-books and audiobooks is a natural fit here. Amazon offers "StoryTime," professionally narrated stories that get read to kids, as well as the huge Audible library of audiobooks. Google has audiobooks available within Google Play Store. Advantage: Amazon Shopping Google Home Hub lets you shop for products from various partners, including Fry's Electronics and Best Buy. And while it's an improvement over non-visual shopping on the audio Home device, the selections are still limited, plus you'll find a better experience on a bigger screen. Show, obviously, shows images larger, offers more sales information and has a way bigger selection. Advantage: Amazon Calls You can make video calls to other Echo owners or phone calls to specific phone numbers, while the Hub is audio call only. The experience is more seamless on the Hub and it acts as a great speaker phone, which could put the final nail in the coffin for land lines. Advantage: Google Photos Google Photos has long been my go-to photo app for many reasons: It automatically backs up every image I take on a smartphone, helps me find old photos through the magic of Google search, and allows me to do quick edits on the fly from within the app as well. I have hundreds of thousands of pictures and videos in Google Photos. So the idea of a digital photo frame showcasing either my most recent highlights, just family, or specific albums I've created on the Hub is ultra cool. With Show, you get images from Amazon's Photos' inferior Photos app, which, while it's been improving, can be a monster to deal with. A collection of images were displayed upside down. And when I asked for specific photos, like my most recent images, I got a thumbs down from Alexa. Unlimited uploads are free to members of the Prime expedited shopping service. Google Photos has free uploads to all. Advantage: Google Info and skills Amazon has more skills – specific tasks – available for the Echo, but most are audio only. Google has the world's most popular and smartest search engine for seeking information. Still, both offer visual mapping, weather reports and calendar information. Advantage: Google Bottom Line The Home Hub wins in most categories due to its richer video content and ease of use for accessing photos. But it's too small. The Show looks more impressive, with bigger and brighter screen but is weak on video content – unless you're a devotee of just Prime Video. But really, when you're buying a video device, you're going to want more video content. Advantage: Google Follow USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham (@jeffersongraham) on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. More:Google Home Hub would be the perfect TV More:Top skills for Alexa: 6 tips for your Amazon Echo that will simplify your life More:Facebook unveils Portal video calling devices for the home with Alexa<doc-sep>The Google Nest Hub (formerly Home Hub) is a smart speaker with Google Assistant voice assistant technology and competes against the second-generation Amazon Echo Show, which is an Alexa-controlled voice assistant. At first glance, these two smart displays seem to be very similar, but they’re actually pretty different. To help out, we’re going to look at how the two devices measure up and which one you may want around the home. Wondering what the heck a smart display is in the first place? Read this. Display Take a look at the displays for each device, and it’s clear both the Nest Hub and the Show 2 have very similarly shaped touchscreens. The size is a different matter, however: The Google Nest Hub has a 7-inch display, while the Show 2 has a 10.1-inch-high definition display. Those three inches can make quite a big difference when actually using the devices. You see, since a smart display is designed to stay in one spot, you need to be able to view it with ease as you move around the room. A larger screen leads to a clearer picture; this is particularly important when reading details/instructions or watching a show. The Show 2 simply provides more in this area. Design While the front of the Google Nest Hub and the Show 2 look mostly the same — Google’s display is slightly more rounded and has a smaller form factor — the back is where the true difference lies. The Nest Hub has a floating display with a back like an angled pedestal propping up the larger display. This makes the Nest Hub better for setting up on tight spaces shared with other objects, such as a shelf or the corner of a table. The Echo Show 2, on the other hand, has a pyramid-like support angling back from the edges of the display. This provides more base support than the Nest Hub and makes the smart display harder to accidentally knock over. But the Show 2 may need a little more room, depending on where you want to put it. Both designs feature a similar cloth-like covering for the bases. Behind that covering are the speakers for the devices, so you don’t want to crowd them too much. The Google Nest Hub model is available in several colors, including charcoal, aqua, chalk, and sand. The Echo 2 is available only in charcoal and sandstone. Performance While both the Google Nest Hub and the Amazon Echo Show can play videos and control your smart home devices, there are other areas where these two smart displays diverge significantly. Let’s take several important features one by one and talk about how they compare. Speaker The Echo Show 2 has two separate 2-inch speakers, a passive bass radiator, and Dolby processing that come together for some impressive sound — much improved over the Echo Show first edition. All we know so far about the Google Nest Hub is that it has a “full-range speaker.” Our initial testing of the device at the Google event puts the sound quality somewhere between the Google Home and the Google Home Mini. That’s not great. For now, it looks like the Show 2 has the upper hand in full-room sound. Cameras and calls Interestingly, the Nest Hub does not have a camera feature. That means that it can’t make video calls, which the Show and other smart displays offer with a simple voice command. Google appears worried that people will think the Home Hub is spying on them if it includes a camera. The company specifically mentions that you can use the Hub in the bedroom or other private areas without fear. If you’re really concerned about privacy, it may be a plus. Smart home integration Both the Show 2 and the Nest Hub have extensive smart home capabilities. Alexa and Google Assistant are both compatible with most smart devices around the home, including many major brands, so you probably don’t need to worry about compatibility issues, give or take a little variance. If you have questions about a specific device in your house, look it up to find out what it works with. For example, a smart security cam (some of which can send video footage to a smart display) may work with Alexa and not Google Assistant or vice versa, so it’s always smart to check. You can answer a Ring doorbell through your Echo Show device. The Google Nest Hub is designed to work closely with Nest products, and you can answer a Nest Hello video doorbell through the Nest Hub. In addition, the Echo Show is also a built-in Zigbee smart hub, giving you an additional option for connecting devices even if they aren’t compatible with Alexa. Skills vs. Google Assistant Alex on Echo devices offers “skills” which are basically mini-apps that you can load to give Alexa specific abilities, such as news reports from your favorite newspaper or games to play. These skills offer a lot of options for personalization, but they also take a lot of time to manage. The Nest Hub offers only what Google Assistant is capable of: There’s less customization, but also less messing around in settings. This could go either way, depending on what you like. Photos The Google Nest Hub works with Google Photos, with a “live album” feature that allows you to turn the Hub in a living photo album of a recent collection of photos. This makes the Hub well suited to serve as a picture frame when not in use. The Show 2 can also show photos, but it doesn’t have the same focus or photo rotation capabilities and doesn’t sync with Google Photos automatically. Music and movies The Nest Hub features Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and other music subscription services that work with Google Assistant. The Show 2 works with Amazon Prime Music, Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, Audible, and more. When it comes to movies and TV shows, the Hub offers ready access to YouTube and six free months of YouTube Premium. The Show 2, on the other hand, does not feature YouTube but is compatible with Prime Video (you can watch Prime movies and original content and movies you’ve purchased through Amazon), live TV and sports via Hulu. Overall, the Show 2 seems better positioned to be an entertainment device as long as you can live without YouTube. Summary The Nest Hub is a less-costly smart display, but it also does less. It has a smaller screen, fewer video options, no camera, and uncertain audio performance. The Show 2 is the better smart display in terms of what it can do, but the Nest Hub is a good choice if your budget is smaller, you already have a Google Assistant speaker in your home, or are concerned about privacy. Editors' Recommendations<doc-sep>
Google’s new Home Hub is the latest smart display to hit the market, but it’s not quite like the rest. One of the key differences with Google’s product is that it lacks a camera, removing any possibility of engaging in a video call with friends or family. (I think I just heard Lenovo and JBL collectively sigh in relief that Google isn’t about to totally eat their lunch.) Putting aside the Home Hub’s lack of a camera, its closest competitor is the Amazon Echo Show. Powered by Alexa, Amazon’s smart display aims to answer all of your queries, connect your streaming services, and seamlessly corral all of your smart home technology. Much of the decision comes down to the services that you’re embedded in. Do you love Prime Video and absolutely need to video chat? Or, well, do you want YouTube access? (The good kind, not the roundabout mobile site version of YouTube.) Then, there’s Facebook’s new smart display, the Portal. While still technically a smart display, the Portal is more limited in its feature set; video chatting with other Portal or Facebook users is the big spotlight here. Unlike the Echo Show, the Portal stands out because it’s able to track you as you move around the room during a video chat. You can listen to music via Spotify or Pandora and watch video content on Facebook Watch, the company’s latest on-demand initiative, though it isn’t as much of a do-it-all compared to the others. Here’s a spec breakdown to make the decision a bit easier.