[Purple Lady]

Well I just finished playing with my new Echo, and I have to say it's a bit of a disappointment. I know it's a beta device, but it really needs some improvements.

The app desperately needs some equalizer settings. Some things sounded ok, but I like metal music and it sounded rather dead and hollow. I do listen to Death Metal, but it shouldn't really sound dead. It sounds bad in my kitchen, but better in my living room on a thick glass table with a stack of books a few inches away.

One of the big reasons I wanted this was because I saw it had TuneIn Radio. I couldn't play my two favorite stations: Death Metal - ROCKRADIO.COM and Metal Assault Radio. It told me that if I wanted to listen to genre stations I had to use iHeartRadio. I think it's because the word "metal" is in both stations. I was able to play 1.FM High Voltage, so I know listening to stations works. I discovered that I can use the app to play my stations, but I need to search for the station each time. I should be able to save stations within the app and I definitely should be able to use a voice command to play them.

I can't get it to play the group Eyehategod. I tried to figure out how to pronounce it phonetically, but didn't succeed. I knew this would be an issue though, so I don't count it as an Amazon problem. I tried spelling it out, but that didn't work either. It did play U2 and INXS when I asked, so they may have done something to make sure more popular groups worked.

Hubby asked what the weather outside was, so when the response was complete I asked what the weather was inside. I got the same response, but it took a few seconds - maybe it was trying to figure out what I meant by inside and just discarded that word.

The way the back button in the app works is driving me insane. When I choose something from the menu, my natural inclination is to hit the back button to go back one screen. It exits the app completely if you got to a screen directly from the menu even if you used the menu to go to a bunch of screens. It goes back one screen if you go to a screen directly from another screen sometimes, but not always. If it's not consistent, it's difficult to get used to. Since I can't use voice commands for some of my favorite music, the way the app works is important.

I sent feedback for the TuneIn radio and Eyehategod issues - hopefully they will fix TuneIn radio, and if I can request Eyehategod by voice, even better!