Two features the Echo Dot has that are missing from the Home Mini:
- audio out port
- full Bluetooth
You can hook the Dot to wired speakers, but not from the Mini.
You can stream audio to Bluetooth speakers from the Dot, but not from the Mini.
A workaround for the Mini is to buy a $35 Chromecast Audio and hook it up to the speaker you wish to use. How easy is that
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Google Home Mini Review: The First Great Echo Dot Rival
Audio Performance
Neither the Home Mini nor the Echo Dot should be used as a primary music source, but if you want to do this, the Home Mini can suffice in a pinch. In a head-to-head audio test, the Home Mini simply blew the Echo Dot out of the water.
Bruce Springsteen's vocals on "I'm on Fire" sounded tinny, hollow and distant on the Echo Dot. It was like listening to a bad AM radio. On the Home Mini, his voice was much fuller, the bass line was much more present, and you could hear more of the nuances in the track. Same thing when I played Billy Joel's "Piano Man"; the song sounded full and strong.
I also liked that I could stream audio directly from a number of sources — such as the Pandora app on my phone and the Chrome browser on my laptop — directly to the Home Mini. That's one thing you can't do with Alexa.
However, the Echo Dot has both a 3.5mm audio jack and Bluetooth, so you can pair it with another speaker very easily. The Home Mini only has Bluetooth, and can only be used to stream audio to the Mini from, say, your smartphone, and not to an external speaker. The only way to do that is if another speaker is connected to a Chromecast device.
Google and Amazon are fairly evenly matched in streaming-audio services, as both support Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio and TuneIn. Not surprisingly, Amazon has Amazon Music, while Google has Google Play Music and YouTube Music. However, only Amazon lists support for Sirius XM.
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