Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa are the most advanced voice assistants in the market right now. Siri, Cortana, and Bixby are still little kids trying to learn how people talk and how to respond appropriately. Google’s Nest Hub Max and Amazon’s Echo Show are among the best smart displays available in the market. But they are pretty expensive. If you can’t afford them, you could look at the Google Nest Hub and Amazon Echo Show 5, both of which offer almost the same features as their more expensive siblings at a lower price.
Amazon’s Echo Show 5 is squarely aimed at the Nest Hub, which has been pretty successful. The e-commerce giant has kept it more affordable than the Nest Hub while also adding some cool features like a smart alarm. Let’s check out how the Echo Show 5 stacks up against the Google Nest Hub in terms of design, display, audio quality, features, and pricing.
Design
The Nest Hub is beautifully designed to make it look like an adornment in the room rather than a big gadget. It has reduced edges and soft fabrics to achieve that. The Amazon Echo Show 5 has a similar design, though it’s smaller than the Nest Hub, which means it can sit in every position in your room more comfortably. The Echo Show 5 also has a soft fabric.
While the Nest Hub lacks a front-facing camera for the sake of user privacy, the Echo Show 5 comes with a 1-megapixel front camera in the top-right corner for people who like making video calls. The Nest Hub allows users to make only voice calls with Google Duo.
The Nest Hub lacks input ports, meaning users can’t plug in accessories to the speaker. They have to rely on Google Cast to stream content from their phones to the smart speaker. The Echo Show 5 gets a 3.5mm headphone jack and a micro-USB port to let you connect accessories and devices. It also supports Alexa Cast, which can cast content from streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Music. It doesn’t support YouTube yet.
Display
Both of them feature touch-enabled displays to let users interact with them, watch videos, and control media playback. The Google Nest Hub gets a 7-inch display with 1024 x 600 pixels resolution. The Echo Show 5 has a smaller 5.5-inch display and a relatively lower resolution of 960 x 480 pixels.
Google’s device is easier and more comfortable to use, thanks to its bigger screen. You can look at your family pictures from Google Photos. The Nest Hub’s adaptive brightness makes the screen more pleasant to look at. Of course, you could can do the same on the Echo Show 5, but it pulls images from Facebook rather than Google Photos.
Audio quality
The sound quality on the Nest Hub and Echo Show 5 is not as good as the more expensive Nest Hub Max and Echo Show. But they are still decent. The angular rear panel of the Echo Show 5 allows Amazon to pack more powerful 14-Watt speakers in its device. The Nest Hub has a larger body, making more room for the speakers. But its speakers are hidden, which affects its audio quality.
Google Assistant vs Alexa
Google’s smart home devices support Google Assistant while Echo speakers come with Alexa voice assistant. They are both excellent in every aspect, but various tests have shown that Google Assistant is far ahead of every other voice assistant in the market. It can understand your natural language more accurately.
Almost all third-party smart home products support both voice assistants. But Alexa supports more smart home devices than Google Assistant. To set up the Nest Hub seamlessly, you can use the Google Home app. The setup process on the Echo Show 5 is not as seamless because you have to set up from the device itself.
They are both pretty similar when it comes to connecting new devices and services such as lights, switches, and smart home cameras. For certain devices, Amazon requires you to install Alexa skills on the Echo Show 5 before you can integrate that device with Alexa.
The Echo Show 5 supports more smart home cameras than the Nest Hub. Amazon’s smart display works with Arlo baby monitor and Ring video doorbell. The Nest Hub works only with Nest cameras.
User privacy
User privacy has become a major concern. According to recent reports, Amazon and Google both were found to be listening to your voice recordings. But the companies have stepped up the privacy game to win the trust of consumers. The Nest Hub doesn’t include a camera to protect user privacy, and allows customers to mute the microphone.
The Echo Show 5 has a front-facing camera, but has a physical camera shutter for people concerned about their privacy. Just like Nest Hub, it also lets users disconnect the microphone. Users can control and manage their data through Alexa’s privacy hub.
Google Assistant has a “You” tab for privacy settings. You can delete all your voice commands through the Google Home app. Amazon allows its customers to delete voice recordings on the Echo Show 5 with a voice command.
Sunrise alarms
This is one of the coolest features of the Echo Show 5, and it’s missing from the Google Nest Hub. When you set an alarm on the Echo Show 5, its display starts brightening up as it gets closer to your alarm time to make it easier for you to wake up. Another device that offers a similar feature is the Lenovo Smart Clock.
Media support
Neither smart display is designed for watching movies or TV shows as their primary objective. But they do allow users to listen to music and watch videos. Third-party streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio are available on both of them. Users can also stream music by sending it from their phones to the smart speakers.
The Echo Show 5 allows users to access the Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Music. For how-to content, it can play WikiHow videos. But it’s not as good as accessing YouTube and YouTube Music on the Nest Hub. YouTube has far more video content than WikiHow. Google Assistant can pull up videos on almost every imaginable subject from the YouTube library.
Pricing
The official price tag of Google Nest Hub is $129. You can buy it from the Google Store. But it’s currently available for as low $80 at retailers like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy. In contrast, the Amazon Echo Show 5 has been priced at $90, but it’s available for just $50 right now as part of the Amazon Prime Day sale.
Conclusion
The Google Nest Hub and Amazon Echo Show 5 are both affordable and excellent smart displays. It all comes down to your personal preferences. Do you want a large display or a smaller one? Do you want a tight integration with Google products and services like Google accounts, YouTube, and Android? The Echo Show is better if you enjoy streaming content from Amazon Music and Amazon Prime Video. Or if you want to use it as a smart alarm.
