Amazon Echo Dot (2020)

The new Amazon Echo Dot adds modern aesthetics but not much else.

The Amazon Echo Dot (2020) is one of the newest products in the Amazon Echo range and the latest Echo Dot. The Amazon Echo Dot – in its various iterations over the past few years – is one of the best options for people who aren’t sure about smart home tech but want to take the first step. With such an easy set-up and such a low price tag, it’s a way to try connected tech without the commitment of too much time, money and energy.

This small, sphere-shaped device provides a compact home for Alexa to live inside yours. It also packs in enough sound performance to fill most rooms – although audiophiles be warned, this isn’t going to compete with your sound system. You can pick up the Dot for under $60, which makes it easy to see why the Dot has so consistently been one of the most popular smart speakers on the market to date. We know many people that have two, three and more in their homes because they’re so useful.

This newest Dot, the Amazon Echo Dot (2020), lives up to the legacy set down by all of the previous Echo Dot devices that came before it – it’s small, decently loud and, thanks to Alexa, it’s pretty smart, too.

Songs we’ve tested include pop hits like Hey Jude by The Beatles and Justin Bieber’s new hit, Lonely, as well as some classic funk and rock as well.

The trend seems to be the same throughout: great vocals in that midrange sweet spot but at the expense of the trebles and bass response that sound muted at almost any volume level. Like the larger Echo, you can tweak each of these areas individually by asking Alexa to raise the bass, midrange or treble, but it doesn’t radically impact the sound of the speaker.

However, the unfortunate part of the new Echo Dot is that it seems to have many of the same foibles as its predecessors as well – it doesn’t have a Zigbee hub inside and, the line-out jack, while great for folks who have a big speaker system, doesn’t cater to the crowd who want to use the Echo Dot as a speaker for their audio player.

Simply put, the new Amazon Echo Dot, while aesthetically different to the models that came before it, brings more of the same as last year’s 3rd gen model to your home. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering how much we loved last year’s model, and many that came before it. But the latest Echo Dot doesn’t innovate enough to push it within range of a 4.0 or 4.5 star rating in our eyes – in case you were wondering.

The new Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen) delivers what you’d expect in terms of sound quality and Alexa integration, but it feels like the same internal components from last year packed into a new spherical shell.

Nick Pino

This small, sphere-shaped device provides a compact home for Alexa to live inside yours. It also packs in enough sound performance to fill most rooms – although audiophiles be warned, this isn’t going to compete with your sound system.