Like a shark swimming through the deep, Amazon never sleeps. It's no surprise that one of the biggest companies in the world continues to churn out products at a quite alarming rate, exemplified by the rapacity and frequency at which it pushes out the various iterations of its Echo range. The classic Echo, the Echo Dot, the Pop; the factory line never stops turning.
It wasn't much of a surprise, then, that Amazon's recent showcase saw the reveal of a new Amazon Echo Show 8, a reimagined version of the brand's flagship screen-ready smart speaker with an overhauled design and plenty of internal changes.
With an edge-to-edge glass touchscreen display and a centralised camera being introduced alongside the implementation of Alexa (now smarter than ever), the Show 8 has seen a complete design overhaul from those iterations that came before.
It isn't just visual changes that make the Show 8 noteworthy, however. Amazon's latest smart speaker comes equipped with custom-built spatial audio processing support, as well as room adaptation technology that senses the acoustics of the room and then fine-tunes playback depending on the position, something we've seen in rival speakers such as the five-star Apple HomePod 2.
What we haven't seen before is something Amazon has dubbed "Adaptive Content". Essentially, using computer vision, the Show's home screen changes and adjusts depending on your proximity to the unit: the further away you are, the less info the screen shows. The closer you get, the more detailed the content becomes.
Alexa obviously returns, with Amazon promising the smartest iteration of its smart assistant yet. Using a new, large language model for quicker responses and up to 40 per cent faster response times, Alexa is now more natural and fluid with its tone and delivery.
The reveal of the Echo Show 8 came alongside a host of firsts and unveilings from Amazon, including new kids' devices, a new Fire TV stick, a Fire TV Soundbar and, perhaps most interesting of all, a pair of smart glasses dubbed the "Echo Frames" which feature open-ear audio, long-lasting battery and, of course, hands-free Alexa access. We might stick to reviewing the audio and AV items for now...
The Echo Show 8 will be available to buy for $149 dollars (further prices pending). Shipping next month, it can be ordered today via Amazon.
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