Amazon’s newly redesigned Echo Show 8 offers a form factor with a ton of potential. The relatively small smart speaker/display combo is roughly the size and shape of a small Kindle Fire in a stand and offers an extremely high-resolution camera as well as stereo speakers, an eight-core CPU, a mic array for better voice recognition and processing, and a relatively heavy, flat base which positions its screen well for viewing at either desk or chest height.
We were lucky enough to get two of the new devices for hands-on testing before launch and have had them for about a week.
Overview and controls
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The black rectangle at the upper right is Echo Show 8’s camera—when shuttered, it’s covered with a plastic tab of the same color as the rest of the device’s chassis. [credit: Jim Salter ]