Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I got this hoping that it would resolve some of the problems with my old Echo Spot. It is worse in every way. When I took it out of the box, I immediately noticed that it feels much lighter than the Echo Spot. This is a bad sign since sound quality typically correlates to the heft of the magnet driving the speaker. In every respect this is a cheap, buggy, poor quality version of the older Echo Spot: 1. The sound is muddy and thumpy. I adjusted the bass all the way down and the midrange and treble all the way up, but it has only a minimal affect on the poor, muffled sound. It's not defective, just obviously a cheap, poor design. 2. The timer still disappears. If I set a timer, I need to see it. Especially if the device is doing nothing else. What is the point of hiding the timer when that is all I've asked the thing to do? The Show 5 is worse, however, because the timer sound is not as loud and is muffled. 3. Changing the volume cancels the timer. At least the Spot does not suffer from this "feature." 4. There is no way to disable the incessant "Try, 'Alexa,…" suggestions. They simply cannot be removed. And if you would like your screen to cycle through the weather and news headlines then you're going to have to cycle through the Amazon ads as well (where they "suggest" that you use Alexa to order things or check on shipping status). 5. The microphone is still poor and unresponsive. I was hoping that this was one thing that could be fixed. My Apple HomePod can hear me halfway across the house with the TV going. If the Spot is playing the news or there is any other ambient sound I have to yell at it. Same with the Show 5. The microphone still makes it a struggle to be recognized if things are not library quiet. 6, The is still no loudness equalization, Going beck to before the 1st iPod it's been easy to set things to normalize things to the same volume. With the Show 5, a low-volume news source is nearly inaudible while a high-volume source is too loud. When I have the Show 5 play three news sources I have to constantly adjust the volume between then. The old Spot has the same problem but you would have expected it to be fixed by now. 7. There is still no option to configure how you want the home screen to look. The entire point of a bigger screen is to show more information, but this still has the old crude system of the Spot that just lets you select a few things that it will rotate through, including the Amazon ads about "Try, 'Alexa,…" I want weather, news headlines and time fixed on the screen. That's it but it cannot be done. 8. There is no way to set the screen to big numbers. If you want to read time from a distance, or in bed if you are near sighted, you cannot fill the screen with the time. The device is so hostile to its users that it's inconceivable that any real users were involved in its design and testing. It is completely and utterly disappointing.