Amazon’s Echo is a $180 wireless speaker that responds to voice commands and questions, and which has speakers that can pick up your voice from across the room. But Echo isn’t the only game in town anymore.
Google launched its own solution called Google Home last year, except that model uses Google Assistant instead of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant software.
Now Lenovo has unveiled its own smart home speaker, and it looks a lot like Amazon’s. It’ll also work a lot like Amazon’s, since it uses the same Alexa voice service.
The Lenovo Smart Assistant is a 1.7 pound cylindrical speaker with a 5 watt tweeter and 10 watt woofer. It’s powered by an Intel Celeron N3060 dual-core processor and features 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. It connects to the internet via 802.11n WiFi and supports Bluetooth 4.0 for connecting to a phone or other gadgets.
Like other devices in this space, the Lenovo Smart Assistant features a far-field microphone array, allowing the device to hear your voice from up to 5 meters (16 feet) away).
So why buy Lenovo’s model instead of Amazon’s? There may be a few reasons. First, Lenovo will offer its smart speaker in four color options: light gray, black, orange, and blue… so it may look better with your home decor than Amazon’s stark black and white options.
Another key reason? With a $130 price tag, the Lenovo Smart Assistant is $50 cheaper than an Amazon Echo (but nearly three times more expensive than an Amazon Echo Dot).
The Smart Assistant will be available starting in May. There’s one caveat: the black model costs more. That’s because it’s a special Harman Kardon edition which is said to offer “premium audio quality” thanks to an additional 2 inch sound cavity.
The Lenovo Smart Assistant Harman Kardon edition will be available in May for $180.
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interesting. I have an echo and three dots currently. this lenovo version certainly looks nicer, though possibly more fragile. my wife takes the echo to the garage, the basement…wherever she is working and has dropped it a couple times on the concrete. its dinged up and I had to glue the top back on, but it still works like a champ.
the price is pretty competitive on this lenovo. I’ll wait for reviews, but if the speaker is at least as good as the echo, I’ll buy one. Now amazon and lenovo (and by extension the US and Chinese gov) can listen in on all my families conversations!
It’s like having a constant house guest. You’ll never feel lonely again!
Maybe the Amazon Tap (with a Tap case) could be a good anniversary gift for you 😉
My echo is in pristine condition (I’m not bragging, promise) and this is an issue for me because my wife doesn’t like me “replacing” things willy nilly, unless they’re broken or dying or obsolete. I hate that she’s like that, on one hand. On the other hand, if she let me buy everything I wanted to, I’d be broke…so there’s wisdom there, somewhere in what she says. Really though, all I’m waiting for is an Echo with the sound output/depth/quality of Sonos or Bose and then I’d definitely jump on replacing mine. I have one dot and am planning to buy another for the master bathroom (because I love listening to music while I shower) and for the kitchen. Where do you have your Dots. I’m considering a Google Home for the living room area since I have an Amazon Fire TV 4K with Alexa there anyway. I hear the… Read more »
My wife often feels the same way about “replacing” things. Would she be open to you selling it on Ebay and using the money to partially fund a new purchase? That’s worked with my wife.
“It’s powered by an Intel Celeron N3060 dual-core processor and features
2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. It connects to the internet via 802.11n
WiFi and supports Bluetooth 4.0 for connecting to a phone or other
gadgets.”
Sounds like a Chromebook in a can. Any one know what processor Amazon uses in the Echo or Dot?
from fixit: The “computer” driving the Echo is quite modest, even more so than what you would find in a set top box like Amazon’s Fire TV. The processor is a Texas Instruments DM3725, a single-core ARM Cortex A8 chip (think iPhone 4), and it’s backed by 256MB of LPDDR1 RAM and 4GB of storage space.Dec 16, 2014
Thanks! I wonder why Lenovo is using so much more horsepower.