Big and bold, the Google Home Max is a beast of a smart speaker – and now it's a fair bit cheaper

Lots of bass; Excellent smart features; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3.5mm playback;

Expensive; Less well balanced sound than Apple HomePod;

If you want a smart speaker that can blow the doors off a party, the Google Home Max is the best you can get right now. All the smart of the cheaper Home speaker are here, naturally, and the larger drivers offer much more powerful bass, better sound quality all-round. Performance at high volume is better than a HomePod’s too. It isn’t quite the last word in all-round sound quality, though. There’s power, bass, scale and energy, but the Sonos Play:5 has more refinement and greater dynamics. And, at some point, a smart version of it will appear. The question: can you stand the wait?

Seriously deep bass; Plenty of power and volume; Great mic sensitivity;

Not as refined as the Sonos Play:5;

Excellent sound quality; Top voice assistant; Looks great;

Multi-room lacks finesse; Comparatively expensive;

For all that Google’s smart speakers have done when it comes to launching the category into the mainstream, there’s one weak-link that’s continued to haunt them. The vision of the future painted by the Google Home and Google Home Mini can be infectiously exciting but it doesn't sound very good.

In spite of the higher price, The Google Home Max ends up being as bigger as it is better.

Sounds bigger and better; SmartSound & aux-in make it better than regular Home;

Bit pricey;

If you're looking for the most powerful Google Home speaker then the Max is it. This speaker offers sound quality and power leagues above the other Home products with the trade-off being size, weight and price. If you've got the budget and space then it will knock your socks off.

Finally, there's a smart speaker where the "speaker" part is as important as the "smart." If you're interested in big, room-filling sound with voice control, the Google Home Max ($399) is your best bet right now. While Amazon's Alexa has our favorite smart assistant ecosystem, if you're focused on music and home control, rather than Alexa's huge grab bag of random third-party skills, the Max makes a terrific core of a smart home. That makes it our Editor's Choice for high-end smart speakers. Design While the original, smaller Google Home speaker looks like an air freshener or scented candle, the Home Max is simple and beautiful. Its smooth contour has rounded edges and a lovely cloth speaker grille that is so seamlessly installed, it looks like it and the surrounding matte plastic are one piece. The cloth has a slight sheen to it, and white LEDs glow behind its surface to display volume levels. An ambient light sensor adjusts the brightness of the LEDs. Beneath the grille, dual 0...

The Google Home Max is the first smart speaker we've seen with serious audio performance.

Great sound; Works as a mono speaker, a stereo pair, or part of a whole home audio system; Attractive design

Too much bass for audio purists; Could do with better lossless audio options

Seriously deep bass; Plenty of power and volume; Great mic sensitivity;

Not as refined as the Sonos Play:5;

You'd be smart to pick up this smart speaker with £200 off