Amazon Echo Show 10

Amazon's new Echo Show 10 smart display can pan, tilt and zoom, meaning it can 'follow' you around the room.

Aside from Alexa showing us its new moves, the new Echo Show 10 boasts a brand new form factor, a HD display and a vastly improved speaker – featuring dual, front-firing tweeters and a powerful woofer.

The 3rd-gen Echo Show 10 costs $399 and essentially replaces the 2nd-gen Echo Show 10, becoming the flagship Echo Show device.

DESIGN AND DISPLAY

Taking a leaf out of Google's book, and its popular Nest Hub range, the Echo Show 10 separates the speaker and display aspects.

It's actually like a tablet sitting on a little Echo Sub.

The tablet part is, sadly, a little underwhelming. The bezel on the 10.1 inch screen has strong 2016 Android tab vibes, as does the mediocre 1280 x 800 resolution of the display.

It's a shame that, given this is a flagship device from a tech giant, the pixel count isn't a step-up from its predecessor, especially given Amazon is keen to pitch the Show 10 as a multimedia device.

That's not to say the display is bad – it's certainly bright enough and plenty crisp for the Alexa skills made for screens – but it just seems daft to not to at least go Full HD.

On to the main event then, at least in terms of what sets the Show 10 apart. The new device can pan, tilt, and zoom, keeping you in frame wherever you are in the room thanks to a silent brushless motor and a new AZ1 neural processor that can recognize the form of a human body.

Essentially, Alexa follows you around a room while it's active. If you ask it a question, or give it a smart home command it will turn to face you when it answers. It then, sort of, stays alive... to the point where it will follow you as you walk around a room for a little while after that initial interaction.

You can turn off the motion tracking, using your voice, the device itself, or the Alexa app, if it bothers you. We turned it after less than a day. It was unnerving.

It's also a bit annoying. It stays at the last point it stopped tracking you. If you've walked out a room, at the edge of its range, for example, it just looks silly facing sideways on a shelf. It will reset to its default position after 10 minutes, although if anyone moves the base, you'll need to reset that default position.

The biggest benefit to the motion capabilities, for me, is that it creates a genuinely brilliant smart home security camera. Using the

Alexa app, you can turn on the camera and get great clear, crisp footage from that 13MP camera. You can also move the camera

around to see what's going on in your house.

This is a genuinely useful feature and the good news is we can expect lots of cool features to come to the device as well, as Amazon has released motion and sensing APIs to developers.

VIDEOS AND MUSIC

For years now there have been glaring omissions when it comes to video apps on the Echo Show range, and that trend continues with the Show 10.

YouTube on an Echo Show only works inside of a browser and is clumsy at best, annoying at worst. The same goes for Disney+ and localised apps.

Also, Alexa tends to get stuck in the browser, by which we mean it will process any query as a video search rather than a general question – so you'll need to exit out of the browser entirely. All in all, it still needs a lot of work.

And, as mentioned above, it's not even a Full HD experience for the apps that are there. Therefore, sadly, I can't recommend the Show 10 as a device to watch movies or videos on, in any serious manner.

The better news is on the audio front. Over the past couple of years we've seen Alexa spread its wings to Spotify, Apple Music and a whole load of other music streaming platforms. It's even possible to make the likes of Spotify the default music service for your Echo devices.

SPEAKER

Sticking with good news, that speaker base is by far the best sounding speaker to feature on an Echo smart display.

Like the Amazon Echo 4th-gen it has a 3-inch woofer, but 1-inch rather than dual 0.8-inch tweeters. Those tweeters move with the motion settings turned on, as well, to maximise the sound profile for your location in the room. It's not amazing by any stretch, but it'd make a fairly good kitchen/study speaker. Anything above about 70% volume sounded a bit tinny and distorted though.

The Echo Show 10 is also a dedicated smart home hub, as Amazon has opted to add a

Zigbee radio inside, just like the Echo Plus and Echo 4th-gen. That means that Zigbee smart home devices (such as Philips Hue bulbs) can be added directly, without using additional apps, hubs or bridges.

Of course, Alexa still underpins the entire Echo Show 10 experience, and despite the added touchscreen controls, it's still pretty much all about voice. One of the best smart home features of the Show range, introduced with the Show 5, is you can swipe in from the right to open a menu with controls for a lot of Alexa's functionality.

From here you can open smart home controls, quickly activate lighting groups, routines, view security cameras on your Echo display and a whole lot more. It's an excellent feature, and one that makes the Echo Show 10 a great smart home hub/control centre.

VERDICT

The latest Echo Show 10, with its spinny skills, updated camera and fairly-decent speaker is, without doubt, the best Alexa smart display device – in terms of features and functionality, at least. Whether it's the best for you though depends on your needs and wants. It's big, needs a lot of room to operate to its full capacity and the motion tracking is a bit weird, in my opinion. However, the Zigbee radio, smart home controls and enhanced smart security features are definitely useful.