Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Received date 21-Nov Review date 23-Nov Have had the Show 15" for 2 days now, mounted it on day two and have been using it a bit for the last day and a half. I will update this review after I have had it for a while but these are my initial thoughts (all scores based on 1-5 stars): Screen - a 4.5; a nice big screen, looks very good. I think the white border around it is a little large and maybe it could have been slightly smaller. The video on it is nice though. I logged into my YouTubeTV account through Silk and watched TV, was a very nice experience. Sound - about a 3 or 3.5; this may be the most debated item in the reviews. My wife and I think the sound is fine. Is it the same as our Show 10 or our Sonos speakers? Nope. Is it good enough? Sure is, I don't think this is supposed to be the foundation of your sound system. Part of it may be where we have it mounted. We had a spot on the wall where our calendar was (yes we still used a wall calendar every year) hung. Since this is likely taking the place of that we put it there, so the speakers have the wall right behind it. The sound is decent enough when mounted like that. If you are demanding about your sound and need concert level sound out of every device, it will not satisfy you. Touch screen - about a 3; I work with touchscreens for a living so I know how a touchscreen should respond. The Show 15 is not up to par with modern touchscreens. I am not sure if it is because of the processor (more on that in a bit) or if it is just a poor touchscreen. But it should register touch a lot better for the technology era we are in. Voice commands/voice recognition - about a 3; as with every Alexa device I have owned since the very first original Echo (the tall, black cylinder back in 2015) the voice commands/recognition is not the best. It can be confusing on what command to give (my wife just tried "Computer, softer" to lower the volume and it could not understand the command) and it sometimes misses it's wake word. It also should be able to do some simple things like tell it what bookmark to open in Silk. The command of "Computer, open TV bookmark in Silk" is met with the old "Hmmm, I don't understand" reply. Come on Amazon, I could do that 5 or 6 years ago with my computer so the technology is there. Integration - about a 4; I have Ring cameras and to have them on my home screen and the ability to activate them with voice or touch is a nice addition. And of course integration into the Alexa universe if great as it should be. However, the integration with my Sonos system is a little lacking. I may need to work on that and tweak it to get it to work better but I would think it would be better out of the box. Speed - about a 2; the speed is atrocious on this thing. I bought it with the promise of it getting a FireTV like upgrade but I do not see how that will be anything worthwhile unless they are currently throttling the CPU and will inlock it when the update comes. It should be much snappier to do things like change screens, open apps (like Silk), and just generally do tings. Now, some it may be the touchscreen response (like I mentioned above) but voice commands also lag. This ting should be much speedier but I guess that is not on the list of things to do, just get it out he door. Mounting - 5; I chose to wall mount with the included mount (see pic). Mounting was a breeze, everything is included with the unit, and the instructions are pretty simple. A word of warning, there is a video on Amazon that shows different anchors than what I received. Is shows the white self-drilling "screw in" anchors that are quite good anchors but the video shows you tap them in with a hammer - DO NOT DO THAT. The whole pint of those anchors are to screw them into the drywall, if you hammer them in it will destroy the drywall and they won't hold. The ones I got were the familiar expansion anchors and they seem to work fine. Depending on where your outlet is you may need to purchase the "Made for Amazon Extension Cable, 6' Length, for Echo Show 15" by Sanus. We had to, and it is well worth it. I was able to run the power in a WAIP (Wife Approved Installation Path). The bracket allows for a nice solid mount and I can easily lift the unit off and rotate if needed (but we likely never will). Overall the unit is nice. My scores average out to a 3.57 but I will give the extra half star to the unit because it is a nice looking unit and seems to do what I intend to use it for - TV in the kitchen, a shopping list that is always available and easily added to, music, and a family calendar that is easily updated and seen. I would recommend a purchase at the $169 price point especially if you are already invested (even slightly) in the Echo ecosystem. Not sure that the unit is worth the full asking price though, although after the holidays when I have done all my cooking with it I may change my mind.