Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As an owner of 2 Echo's, 3 Dot's, an Echo Tap, an Echo Wand, and an Echo Show - I have to recommend that you stay away from the Echo Show. Go with one of the other many models. I don't say the above lightly - I love my other echo's and have driven over a dozen other people to jump on the Alexa bandwagon! The Echo's have been a significant value-add for my family. The Show just falls short for me in a few very very key areas. I've had my echo show since release. I preordered 2 of them, one for me and one for family to conduct video calls. If we could return our Echo Show's, we would. Issues: First, as others have pointed out - YouTube is no longer supported but to us, that feature was kind of hokey anyway. Getting it to find the right video was often a chore - but that's due to my chief complaint - Voice recognition. Voice recognition on my show is crap. It just is. I don't know what the problem is, but I can say "Turn on Fireplace" directly in front of the show, 2 feet away, and it doesn't recognize what I say. I ask it to play a song, and it responds with "What pandora station would you like me to add?" Of course, I didn't say anything remotely resembling Pandora. These are commands we regularly do, and have done, with the other echo's. The Show just gets it wrong. Granted, it's voice recognition issues don't happen all the time, but it's so frequently an issue that it's incredibly frustrating and no longer a "help" to use my Alexa. It's definitely the Show too, as my other echo's recognize us without issue. In fact, we replaced one of the original Echo's with the Show, so it's in the same place in the room. For additional context, we have a very automated home - we use voice for lights all the time, and some devices (like the fireplace) as well. We listen to music almost constantly with 3 small kids. The second chief complains isn't Show specific, but impacts all Echo devices - Calling & Messaging. I have a phonebook full of contacts, 95% of them I never talk to, but have for work, or an old colleague, or a family member I just don't talk to frequently. I have escalation lists for my job, which means some very senior contacts from my very large company. I can't filter any of these out on my Echo's, and with one small mess up can call any of them from any of our echo devices. I only have 1 person I want to call, but I can't restrict who is in the devices contacts. 4 year old is mistakenly heard for calling our CTO? Yup, it's going to give him a call at his house on his family's echo saying I'm calling. How did anyone agree this was a good idea?! To add insult to injury, I can't remove the contacts unless I call customer service! That said, my kids and my niece/nephew love it when we video call. They all get around the Show and they like playing games with each other and just having a good time (age range is 2-6). Another complaint which is rather minor is the lack of ability to press a button for the Echo to recognize your command. It's available on every other unit, except the show. You can only trigger the Show with a voice command. It's minor, but it is an annoyance. I really wanted to like the show. Perhaps it's just my unit that has the voice recognition issue - I hope that is the case. The contact management aspect is crippling the feature and usability though. Every time I try to drop in or place a call, I have to be super careful with who it calls. I shouldn't have to worry about that! I should be able to only add those who I actually want to call or talk to. So, what do I have to say that is good about the Echo Show? Nothing specific to the Show unfortunately. All my praise is applicable to the entire Echo lineup. I use it for shopping lists, to-do lists, weather updates, news, music, home automation, dropping in around the house (an internal intercom), and for some of the local store hours / information - though the last feature only works on a few "mainstream" stores / establishments. Some of the skills are pretty good, but I mostly use it for it's core functionality. That about wraps up my long overdue review of the Echo Show. I hope you've found this helpful. If you have, please click the Helpful button below the review - It's anonymous!