All products featured on NME Recommends are curated by our editorial team. NME may earn a small commission when you buy through our links.
The Amazon Echo and the Echo Dot are two of the most popular smart speakers currently in the market. And now that they’re going at discounted prices – $79.99 and $34.99 respectively – there’s no better time to turn your home into a smart one.
- READ MORE: Obey your master: the best smart home hubs and speakers
- READ MORE: Soundtrack your outdoor adventures with these rugged and affordable wireless bluetooth speakers
Echo vs Echo Dot: Voice assistants
Both the Echo and Echo Dot come with Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa. Using the wake word “Alexa”, you can access all of its features like playing music, telling you the time, reading a weather forecast and so on.
Echo vs Echo Dot: Microphones
Here’s where things start to differ. While both the Echo and Echo Dot come with omnidirectional microphones to pick up your voice, the former has a more advanced seven-microphone array, compared to the simpler four-microphone setup in the latter. That means the Echo will be better at picking up your voice commands.
Echo vs Echo Dot: Speakers
Compared to the Dot, the Echo has a more sophisticated speaker setup, with two 0.8-inch tweeters, a three-inch neodymium woofer and increased volume. The Dot’s sound quality has improved with each iteration but still doesn’t stand up to its bigger brother. Even though both devices come with a 3.5mm audio jack output to connect to other devices, only the Echo comes with a 3.5mm input jack – which means that only the Echo allows you to physically plug in devices.
Echo vs Echo Dot: Design
While both speakers come with identical colour finishes, the Dot has a version that comes with a LED clock. There is also a kids edition of the Dot, which comes in animal finishes, in either a tiger or panda design. The Dot also has a smaller footprint than the Echo. Despite that, however, neither of them are travel-friendly – they’re solely meant for home use.