A smart display that wants to be the heart of the home

REVIEW | AMAZON ECHO SHOW 11

- Tushar Kanwar

Part smart assistant, part mini TV and part home automation hub, the Echo Show 11 is designed to rule your living space

Let’s address the obvious question first: Why do we need a smart display when we already walk around all day with mini-supercomputers in our pockets? Great question... and yet, here we are, still glancing at our phones with messy kitchen hands, squinting at recipe text, or shouting reminders from across the room like it really is 2016. That's the gap that the new Echo Show 11 (₹26,999) is trying to fill, a screen you don’t have to pick up, unlock or keep awake while you're busy getting things done. Does it make a compelling enough case for planting an immovable smart display in your home?

The Echo Show II pairs an 11-inch full HD display with a squat, pill-shaped mesh fabric-covered base that it shares with the Echo Show 8 and its 8.7-inch screen. On both models and their Glacier/Graphite colour variants, the slim screens almost appear to float off the base, giving the smart displays a sleek, modern look and the speakers space to fire forward. On the Show II that I tested, the screen is a solid upgrade, in terms of resolution/details, brightness and wider viewing angles, though the new design does come with one downside—the fixed angle of the screen offers no scope for adjustment.