premise, please read: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/echo-dot-vs-google-home-mini,review-5835.html
| Amazon Echo Dot | Google Home Mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Design | X | |
| Audio | X | |
| Smart Home Performance | X | |
| Voice Assistant | X | |
| Microphone | X | X |
| Entertainment | X | X |
| Price | X | X |
| Total | 6 | 4 |
The winner is: Echo Dot.
Personally, I apparently disagree with votes and so I compiled my scorecard table ant thinked about metrics.
- I so added two more features: "communication" and "skills/actions".
- I report my comparison with Italian language localizations, delivered in Italy by Google in the middle of March 2018 and by Amazon ath the end of October 2018.
Here below the table and my notes.
| Amazon Echo Dot | Google Home Mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Design | X (a) | X |
| Audio | X (b) | |
| Smart Home Performance | X | |
| Voice Assistant | X (c) | X (c) |
| Microphone | X | X |
| Entertainment | (d) | X (d) |
| Price | X | X |
| Communication* | X (d) | |
| Skill/actions* | X (e) | |
| Total | 7 | 6 |
My Notes:
I like the Echo Dot coloured ring! Very well used to convy meaning!
Many people state Amazon Echo Dot gen-3 audio quality is better than Google Home Mini. I partially disagree. In facts at first glance Echo Dot sound is impressive with georgeous basses. The power of sound is even too mutch and sometime there are distorsions also with low volume settings. Also I hate the lack of continous control of volume with too big steps (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Just ten values, whereas Home Mini supply 100 steps!
Ehi Google, set the volume to 33
In the long term (hours of music listening), the Home Mini sounds mode "balanced" and "flat" (that's positive) with also a more clear reproduction of voice (not music).
Both systems have similar NLU quality with pros/cons, failures and bugs. What I really dislike is that Google Assistant launched Italian version in March 2018 and many original bugs (apparently simple to fix) still persist. Hard to digest as final user and "lover".
I hate the fact Alexa oblige to use a payment service like Spotyfy Premium or the default Amazon Music. I like the fact Google Assistant allow Spotify Free accounting allowing at least to listen Spotify playlist for free, without the need of a mandatory subscription! On the other hands, at the moment the contents canvass allowed by Amazon (with audible audiobooks, etc.) is vast.
Alexa Drop In, Messaging and calls are super! These features are not present in Google Assistant now (rumors say that they are coming soon). Also, "reminder" feature run smoothly on the Echo dots, whereas the feature do not run correctly with Google Home. Awful UX on a Google Home.
The Alexa developers community program is huge. No way for ActionOnGoogle, that lack of dev community strategy, communication with both final users and developers.
My voting score state that the winner is still the Echo Dot... but for slightly different reasons of those claimed by Tomsguide.
Giorgio Robino, Genova, 8th November 2018