Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I just ordered the Dot 4. It says it won't be here till December, but I'll report back. I have an Echo 1, Echo 2, Dot 2, and Dot 3 to compare it to.
It's intended use is to replace the echo 2 in the kitchen, hoping it will hear better when next to a tile wall.
My son does most of the music listening, and says he can't tell a difference between the Dot 3 and Echo 2 the way he uses them, so I saw no reason to try the Echo 4 over the Dot 4.
ApK
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We got our Dot 4 the other day. Bad news out of the way first: I think I can say objectively that at the higher volume settings, the speaker quality sucks. Above level 6 or so, music is distorted, a bit noisy, and tinny, like a '70s-era pocket radio.
At level 6, which is still reasonably loud, even in a kitchen with fans and appliances running, things become far more subjective.
I find it sounds almost identical to our Dot 2s in most settings. I think the speaker arrangement of the older Dots and Echos make the sound more heavily influenced by the acoustics of wherever it sits, for better or worse.
My son notices a difference between the Dot3 in his room and this Dot 4 in the kitchen, more so than with the Echo 2, but not so much that he says it matters to him. I think he prefers the Dot3 to the Dot4, and I think I do too. Maybe it's because of the acoustics in his room. But it's good enough.
My daughter prefers the Dot 4 to either the Dot 2 in her room, or to the Echo 2 in the kitchen. She says the 4 sounds "clearer." I think she prefers the lack of bass.
For everything else, so far the Dot 4 is performing better that the Echo 2 did in the kitchen. It's responding to voice more reliably, and I was even able to change the wake word in the living room back to "Alexa" because the the Dot4 is recognizing when we are talking to it better than the Echo 2 ever did.
And, since the Echo 2 is working better in the basement where we moved it to replace an old Dot that had the habit of ignoring my wife like a sullen teenager, I definitely think the gen 4 shape just works better near the kitchen tile wall than did the older shape, which admittedly had instructions saying "do not place close to walls."
For $28, I'm keeping it in the kitchen. Since we don't need the smart home hub feature, the Echo 4 would have to sound a LOT better than the Dot 4 to make it worth the extra money for me, and it probably does, but we just don't care enough to find out.
ApK