Amazon Echo Show 5 review: Honey, I shrunk the screen
The diminutive Echo Show 5 was unveiled in mid-2019 sale and adds to Amazon's growing Echo device range. It's a small, 5.5-inch version of Amazon's large Echo Show but is significantly cheaper - at less than half the price.
Since Show 5 appeared, we've also has some other changes in the Echo Show range, with the advent of a third model, the Echo Show 8 - in between this and the bigger, standard Echo Show (that will surely get refreshed in 2020).
Echo Show 8, is a bigger version of the Echo Show 5 and has all of the same features. With the Echo Spot now discontinued, Amazon is pitching Echo Show 5 as an alternative device for the bedroom, or other occasional rooms where you want Echo with a screen.
We do wonder if we'll see a bit of a realignment of Amazon's Echo series this year – after all this device undercuts the standard Echo without a display. Clearly, with Google also pushing screen-based devices at the moment, Amazon feels it needs to double-down.
Design, display and sound
- Measures: 148 x 86 x 73 mm
- 5.5-inch touchscreen
- 4W speaker
One of the criticisms of the larger Echo Show is its size – at nearly 25cm wide – and large bezels. Of course, things are somewhat different with the Echo 5, at around 15cm wide and Echo Show 8 at around 20cm wide.
The Show 5 is much neater than the largest model, as you can see in our side-by-side gallery below.
The 5's display appears brighter than that of the standard Show, too, which we felt wasn't of the highest quality. The smaller device does have significantly lower resolution, though, which does makes sense – but as it's smaller it appears clearer and crisper in many ways, at least when comparing the two side-by-side.
As you'd expect, the Echo 5's smaller scale means the sound output – it has a 4W speaker – isn't on the same level as the Echo, Echo Plus, Echo Show 8 or larger Echo Show. But it's fine for most tasks.
Music sounds decent as long as you have a small-to-medium-sized room. At two-thirds volume it remains very listenable, but turn it up further and the treble is too much. If you want a great-sounding speaker and aren't so fussed about the screen, get the Echo Plus.
Hardware and specs
- MediaTek MT 8163 chipset
- 3.5mm stereo audio output
- 1MP, 720p video calling camera
- No Zigbee smart home hub support
While the larger Echo Show opts for an Intel Atom processor, the newer Echo Show 5 and 8 are based around a MediaTek chipset. There is a bit of lag with some commands and it is occasionally unknown whether Alexa has understood what you've said until several seconds later when the content you've asked for appears. Of course, this is also dependent on the quality of your connection – but we've been testing it on a decent network.
The top of the Echo Show 5 has a standard selection of buttons and five microphones – there are two between the buttons on top of the unit. There's volume up/down as you'd expect, and just as with all other Echo devices there's a microphone (and camera) on/off button – but this is now augmented with a physical shutter that you can slide across the cover.
Although it's tempting to chalk it off as a victory for the paranoid, privacy is a hot potato and it's an easy add-on to say "hey, we're taking privacy seriously". That said, you surrender a lot of other information to Amazon – not least audio – so it's a needle in a haystack in reality. Still, it will provide comfort to some, while Amazon has recently also introduced the ability to delete the last thing you said to Alexa or all of that day's recordings.
The camera is poor at 1MP – mind you, that's better than the Echo Spot's VGA cam – and we don't really see why it couldn't be a little better, though it is capable of 720p video. The main Echo Show's camera is 5-megapixels.
In terms of other small features, there's also a 3.5mm output jack should you want to connect up Echo Show 5 to an auxiliary sound system. There's no Zigbee smart home hub support here, unlike the main Echo Show and also the Echo Plus.
Software and Alexa
- Better video calling options than ever
- Still no YouTube
- Skills are getting more video-focused
Of course, Alexa remains an extremely comprehensive assistant that's evolving all the time, while Alexa Skills are continually more plentiful and adapted for the screen. The Echo Show software is also much-improved thanks to updates but there's no getting away from the fact Alexa is still primarily designed for audio and voice interaction.
The 5's screen is, however, very useful for specific tasks – such as connecting to your Ring doorbell, making a Skype call, seeing detailed weather information, or Amazon's latest deals.
OK, so you may not want to hear about the deals, but those other examples are where the screen comes into its own versus Alexa voice simply reeling deals off at you. Step-by-step recipes from BBC Good Food are also a great use-case for the display.
There are also quite disparate screen experiences with similar apps. We really like the on-screen lyrics when listening to music, but listening to a radio station – or with Spotify or Apple Music - doesn't give you much on-screen info worth looking at, other than album art.
Amazon has tried to paper over the cracks of there being no YouTube support, with Vevo music videos and WikiHow instructional videos (plus Amazon Prime Video, of course), but it's not enough. Amazon did announce YouTube was returning to Fire TV back in April, so it's odd that it hasn't debuted for Echo Show as yet. Google is trying to push its own smart displays so there could be something in that, but as it makes money out of ads whatever device you use it's a bit churlish to withhold YouTube from Echo Show.
As we mentioned there's now Skype support, plus Drop In between Echo devices and the ability to make mobile calls with Vodafone UK. But these features do highlight a continuing issue with Alexa – it can do so much it's difficult to know where to begin. And it's also a challenge to discover new features.
As well as a regular Friday email, Amazon is also trying to introduce undiscovered features to users via a swipe-from-the-right gesture from the home screen (above).
Amazon acknowledges some will use Echo Show 5 as an alarm clock, so the screen can illuminate gradually to wake you up gently. Which is a nice feature indeed.
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