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Amazon’s Echo Show 8 is our pick for best smart display for Alexa users, and it’s available now from various retailers for $75. While we’ve seen this deal before, it’s still about $20 off the typical street price of the 8-inch display and $55 off Amazon’s list price. For reference, the device’s all-time low is $70.
Amazon
Amazon Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen)
That’s just $5 more than the lowest price we’ve seen for this 8-inch smart display, which we recommend for Alexa users.
We gave the Echo Show 8 a rating of 87 when it launched a few years ago, and we currently recommend it in our best smart displays and best smart home devices guides. It generally offers the best mix of price and performance within Amazon’s smart display lineup. The Echo Show 5 is a bit too small for general use, while the Echo Show 10 and its rotating display are much more expensive and bulky. The 8-inch, 1,280 x 800 resolution display here, on the other hand, is big enough to make video calls and photo viewing comfortable, but not so big that it looks out of place in a kitchen or bedroom. The built-in speakers are capable of filling a room, and the whole thing is powerful enough to improve the weather, control your smart home gear, stream video, and handle other Alexa tasks without much sluggishness. And while no smart speaker or display is truly ideal for those who care about their privacy, the Echo Show 8 has a physical camera shutter and microphone mute button when not in use.
Like all Echo devices, the Echo Show 8 works best if you’ve already invested in other gadgets that work with Alexa. If you’re not in that ecosystem but still want a smart display, the 7-inch Google Nest Hub might be a better buy at this price point, as it integrates better with common Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar, and YouTube leaves. (The latter only works via a web browser on the Echo Show.) It lacks a camera for video calls, although that might be a good thing for the more privacy-conscious. However, if you prefer an Alexa-based smart display, this is a decent deal.
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