[tubemonkey]

Exclusive: Amazon’s touchscreen ‘Echo Show’ pre-orders start tomorrow for $229.99 and ship June 28

Amazon’s new Echo with a built-in touchscreen, which I uncovered last week, will officially be called the Amazon Echo Show. A tipster just sent me the image shown above with new information about the product.

The Echo Show will cost $229.99 in the US and will be released on June 28th. UK and German pricing is expected to be £219.99 and €239.99 respectively, but may have different release dates. Just as The Wall Street Journal rumored earlier today, the new Echo will be available to pre-order starting tomorrow, May 9th. While the reliability of this new information is unknown, the release date and pricing match perfectly with information I’ve received in the past about the new Echo model, but was not able to verify.

Echo with touchscreen and video calling might be announced this month

The upcoming Amazon Echo with a touchscreen, which I leaked the first image of last week, might be announced as early as tomorrow, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sources tell the Journal that the built-in camera will, as I speculated, be used for a video calling feature similar to Skype.

The Journal’s sources say the rumored calling capabilities, which are expected to also come to existing Amazon Echo and Echo Dot models, will be released in stages. The first stage could be “as an intercom within the house between Echo devices, or between Echo owners.” I’d expect future stages to allow calls between Echos and regular phone numbers.