To buy standard Amazon Echo or Echo Spot? Language settings?

[dreameater1988]

Hello everyone!

I hope some of you can be of help with my question. I have a birthday coming up and my dad wants to buy me an Amazon Echo device, but I'm currently still torn which one I should get.

I wasn't thrilled with the idea at first but since I've seen first-hand what the little Dot can do, I definitely want one. I would mainly use it to connect it to smart home devices, manage reminders, alarms and shopping lists and to listen to my music and Audible audiobooks. I have pretty good speakers that are hooked up to my PC but I hardly ever use it during the summer months and I always find it difficult to play my audiobooks from PC anyway, so the Echo seems like the perfect little helper for that.

I've narrowed my wishlist down to either the standard Amazon Echo or the Echo Spot (which my dad has). I found that the speakers on the Spot are actually pretty decent and will definitely do for audiobooks, but I'm not sure they're suitable for music in the long run. I can hook the Spot up to a set of speakers, right? How does the speaker on the standard Echo compare to the ones on the Spot? At first glance, I really liked the additional display, but is it worth it?

So far, I've tested the Dot and Spot in real life, but I don't know anyone who owns the standard Echo, so your opinion would be greatly appreciated

Also: I've read somewhere that the Amazon Echo struggles to respond in any other language that isn't the one in your Amazon account settings. I'm German and I've basically set all my devices (computer, tablet, phone, etc) to English, my Amazon account is also all English, but I would love to be able to switch languages on Alexa. I know you have to switch the language inside the app and it can't be done with a voice command, which is fine, but does anyone have any experiences with using Alexa as a bilingual device? For everyday life, I would be okay with just having Alexa understand English, but I just want the option of switching to my native language as well.

[MartinB999]

Hi
I have a house full of echo devices, the spot, the show, the standard echo and the dots. I'm changing over to the Google system (purely because the echo system cannot make phone calls yet - and I'm sick of waiting) but have to say that I do like how this Alexa system works generally.

The spot, in MY view, is just an expensive alarm clock with a camera facility (which is tiny), I've written about that in an earlier post. The show has been very "clanky" for me so cannot recommend that. The standard echo speakers are really quite good and along with the echo dots give a good system. The sound on the standard echos is good (much better than the spot), on the dots is good for things like books and general information but for music I would recommend streaming through to your speakers from the dots. Yes, you can hook your dots up to your speakers with a little technical know how.

As far as the language goes, I cannot comment. I do have a friend (Helga) who is from Germany and has a strong accent who uses the Echo system in her house. I asked her about it and she had a few minor problems when she first got it but it "learns" to understand you she tells me. As far as speaking in two languages, I don't know about that.
I would thoroughly recommend the Echo and the dot.

Hope this helps.

[AlanH]

I have a Spot in the kitchen, where it's mainly used as a radio/alarm clock with cooking timers and alarms. It's usually tuned to BBC Radio 2 or BBC Radio 4 in the morning/evening. Audio quality isn't super important in the kitchen.
I have a 1st gen Echo in the lounge, and a 2nd gen Echo in the home office, both used more for music listening in the background, and both more than adequate in terms of quality. If I want to settle down to listen to music properly, I listen through my Sonos set-up.