Google Home Mini
Google gets almost everything right with this mini speaker, but there’s one irritating omission
Google isn’t used to being second. And yet, that’s the uncomfortable position it finds itself in within the smart speaker world. The reasons for that are twofold: first, Amazon was fastest out the blocks. Second, Amazon also twigged early on that buyers might not feel comfortable dropping £150 on multiple trumped-up Bluetooth speakers, and came up with the Echo Dot, a £50 version that offers all the functionality of the larger speaker for a fraction of the price.
Google can’t turn back time (yet – who knows what it’s cooking up in its labs), but it can neutralise the second problem, and that’s where the Google Home Mini comes in. It does everything Google Home does but is designed to link to your sound system and costs around £50. Just like the Echo Dot.
While the cylindrical design of Echo Dot looks like someone decapitated the Echo, Google has had to think more carefully to make the Home Mini look like a relative of the Home. What you get in the box is something not too far removed from a playing piece from the Go board game – or, if you’re unfamiliar with the game Google’s AlphaGo has got unnervingly good at, picture it as a giant fabric Galaxy Minstrel.
You have three colours to choose from – chalk, as shown here, charcoal or a reddish coral – and all are attractive to the eye. It’s discreet and understated, blending in just as seamlessly as the Google Home did when it burst onto the UK scene earlier this year.
When it’s talking to you, four lights appear through the fabric on top, flashing to let you know it’s listening. Touch controls sit to the left and right, allowing you to control the volume. It’s artfully nondescript, with no obvious branding.
There is one big issue, however: there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack. You can’t even connect the speaker to another via Bluetooth. Instead, if you want to beef up the sound quality, you’re left either relying on a Chromecast-enabled speaker, or buying a Chromecast Audio for your dumb setup.
Now the Chromecast Audio is a great device, but this still feels like a massively bone-headed move by Google. I have two Echo Dots in my house, and both are connected to better speakers via a 3.5mm headphone jack. Forcing people to buy a £20 Chromecast Audio on top of the Home’s £49 price feels deliberately bloody-minded and, I imagine, many buyers will be just as annoyed as I was when they find out.
With that in mind, an awful lot is resting on the speaker element of the Google Home Mini, and those are expectations it was always going to struggle to meet. To my ears, it sounds better than the Echo Dot without an external speaker, but that’s hardly a tough ask – sound quality remains thin and lacking body. You’ll find more bass in a soprano quartet ensemble. Talk radio, podcasts and so on sound fine, but I wouldn’t want to listen to music on it.
Which is a real shame, because, in my subjective comparisons between Google and Amazon’s smart speakers, I always ended up on Team Google – and that’s mainly thanks to the quality of Google Assistant. Alexa isn’t bad, but Google is far better at establishing context from a wide variety of questions. In short, you’re less likely to end up stumping Google Home than you are the Amazon Echo.
That functionality is all present here, as you’d expect. And if you’re tied into the Google ecosystem, things work magically. You can ask the Google Home Mini to send directions to Google Maps on your phone, and it’ll do it. Ask the Home Mini to play a specific film trailer, and it will spring your Chromecast-connected TV to life and show the video on YouTube. Lost your phone? No problem, just let the Home Echo know and it will sound the alarm. Hands-free calling is coming to
“Ask the Home Mini to play a film trailer, and it will spring your Chromecast-connected TV to life and show the video on YouTube”
the UK soon, as is the broadcast feature, which allows you to use multiple Google Home speakers as an intercom system. In short, it’s a little marvel that may sound unnecessary on paper, but becomes increasingly tied to your daily life as you learn to live with it.
The Google Home Mini would be a nailed-on five-star product if Google had only spent a couple of quid putting in a 3.5mm headphone jack in every unit. I just can’t understand the rationale of skipping it – maybe Google sees its products as more about voice than music?
Even if that is the case, seeing Amazon pack a headphone jack in should have been enough incentive to compete. As it stands, despite preferring Google Assistant to Alexa, I find it impossible to recommend this over the Dot – unless you happen to have Chromecast-connected speakers already. The good news? If you buy a Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL from Google Play before the end of December, you’ll get a Home Mini for free.