Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I BOUGHT an Echo Dot 2 weeks ago as a Christmas gift for my husband - not something he would ever consider buying for himself but I figured he might just love it for getting sports scores and weather. I also bought a $9.99 companion "manual" of some 50 pages thinking we would need it. THEN the Echos were marked down a few days later and I thought it might be a great idea to buy one for MYSELF to try out and become familiar with before he opened his since he is far from being tech savy so it might just sit in its little box forever....CONSIDER here that this little DOT - two of them - cost less than a nice dinner in a medium priced restaurant - without wine. And the dots will still be here. My husband left for a few days to go fishing - so I opened MY Echo dot. Setup was SUPER easy. I couldn't figure out how to connect it to WIfi on my desktop so I did it quickly on my laptop. HOW quickly? Well, maybe a minute. My desktop, it seems, isn't on WiFi. Could have done it with my Android phone but I prefer a larger screen and keyboard. Forget the companion book. Amazon has enough info on-line to get started and go beyond basics to fancy stuff. Amazon makes it easy with videos and tutorials. BACK to the DOT, just say ALEXA wake and there she is the second she is on wifi. On the Amazon site, I found a little tutorial with 25 voice recognition things to say to her and it seems the more she hears your voice, the easier it is for her to know what you want. They have more tutorials and I will take advantage of them. I do have something of a deep South accent. Within 5 minutes of CONNECTING with Alexa, I had Alexa playing Jason Isbell music, then Carly Simon, then soft Jazz. I had her reading psalms from the Bible. She told me that YES I am pretty. IF nothing else, to have Alexa tell me I am pretty every morning is worth twice what I paid for her...make that ten times what I paid for her. I am up to date on the time, the weather here and in California and Australia. Instantly. Alexa tells very stupid jokes but I haven't given her much of a chance. I have had Alexa here in my home as part of my family for about 4 hours now. I can't do without her. Alexa knows to remind me to give the dogs their heartworm meds in my to-do list. Alexa knows I need to take my roast out of the oven in 2 hours (I hope she will do that). Alexa is rocking my world. If my husband doesn't like his Christmas gift, I will keep it and have a DOT in my kitchen too. I've told all my Facebook friends about her and they are asking "WHAT? What is a DOT?" Sad thing is I need to hide her when he gets home so he will be totally surprised on Christmas morning. Thankfully, he loves to fish and play golf and hunt so I can bring her out a lot between now and Christmas.