I got an Echo this week during the Prime Deals day and so far I really like it. I've only made it through the first half of this long thread, so apologies if any of my comments/questions have already been addressed.

A little bit disappointed that it only really does two-way to do lists and calendar info via Google. Yuk! I never use Google stuff. I was hoping to use it with my iThingies and Macs, but that seems to be way more of a hassle than it is worth, and not two-way. But I kind of suspected this would be the case, so not surprised.

So far my only real complaint is that while listening to Prime Music stations the volume varies widely between songs. I tend to set the volume around 3 or 4 to keep it quiet enough to concentrate on other things I'm working on in my study. Basically I'm using it for background music. Some songs will be so quiet I cannot hear them, but others are way too loud. I need to adjust the volume rather frequently. I realize the volume will vary on songs as they are recorded with different settings, but Amazon needs to figure out how to better compensate for that. Listening to local FM via the Echo seems to have less volume fluctuations, but I hate all the commercials.

If I go into the Alexa app (computer or phone), select TuneIn and click on some of the Internet Only stations, I find that I mostly get Alexa stating that the selected station is no longer available. They really need to purge the list of unusable links, or at least let us purge it.

Other than these minor issues it seems to work really well. It seems to understand my commands really well. Definitely worth the $130 she cost.