Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen) Review

It's surprising that it took the $49.99 Echo Dot smart speaker this long to start looking like, well, a dot. The fourth-generation Echo Dot is now a sphere, to mirror the look of the new fourth-gen Echo, albeit in a smaller size for half the price. Not much else has changed here, but the new Echo Dot remains one of the best ways to add Amazon's Alexa voice assistant to every room of your home. That said, we think the LED clock face on the Echo Dot With Clock is worth the extra $10 if you plan on putting the speaker on your desk, nightstand, or anywhere else you use clocks and timers.Mostly a New Design The fourth-gen Echo Dot is a 3.9-inch sphere, half plastic and half fabric covered, coming in blue, dark gray, or white. On the top there are four physical buttons for volume up, volume down, activating Alexa, and turning the mic off. The blue light ring that shows when Alexa is listening has migrated from the top of the speaker to the bottom, making the surface underneath glow soft...

The fourth-generation Echo Dot speaker doesn't offer particularly impressive sound quality, but for $50, it's still the best basic gateway to Amazon's Alexa voice assistant.

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen with Clock & Alexa Glacier White B084J4VX9L review

The Amazon Echo Dot with Clock (2020) has undergone a dramatic design overhaul – but underneath the hood, little has changed over its predecessor. The compact smart speaker/alarm clock-hybrid shares many of the pros and cons of the original Dot with Clock, and unless the new space age-style design...

Great design; Clear timepiece; Easy to set up

Weak bass frequencies; No 360-degree audio; No Zigbee hub

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen with Clock & Alexa Glacier White B084J4VX9L review

It’s been a busy few weeks for smart speakers. Amazon kicked things off in late September with newer, rounder versions of both the Echo and Echo Dot. Less than a week later, Google updated the Home, after four years, with the rebranded Nest Audio .