Google vs. Amazon: The smart display showdown

Enlarge / Other than Amazon's rotating base, the two main product lines look pretty similar.

Google and Amazon are basically the only game in town if you're looking for a plug-and-play smart display, but the companies arrived at similar products from very different directions. A smart display's usefulness mostly has to do with which ecosystem you've committed to, making recommendations no simple affair. If you're on Team Apple, you'll have to keep hoping that Tim Cook announces a Siri smart display someday.

Both products are rather rigid and will expect you to adapt to them rather than the other way around. The Google Screen will only work with the Google Assistant and will push you toward Google products, while the Amazon Screen will only work with Alexa and will push you toward Amazon products. There are a few partners out there that provide various features like music and cameras, but these products are not as infinitely configurable as a smartphone. Smart displays will often demand adherence to an ecosystem.

The Echo Show 10

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  The Amazon Echo Show 10. It has a big display on a rotating base. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]

The specific hardware doesn't matter too much since these smart displays all run the same Amazon or Google software across various screen sizes, maybe with one extra headline feature. I spent most of my testing time with the $249.99 Amazon Echo Show 10, which has a 10-inch screen and super-cool rotation feature. There's also the stationary $64.99 Echo Show 8, the $39.99 Echo Show 5, and if you want to get really wild, there's the $249.99 Echo Show 15, which has the form factor of a wall-mounted picture frame.

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