Amazon Echo Pop Review

The Amazon Echo army has a new foot soldier in the Echo Pop, a sub-five-thousand rupee Alexa controller speaker that looks like someone took a full Echo Dot, sliced it in half and splashed it with colour. Along the way, you saved a little bit of money and lost a couple of features, but is the Pop the entry-level smart speaker to buy? 

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The new, refreshed look is key to the appeal of the Pop, as it feels less and less of a gadget and more of a stylish bedside or desk ornament in fun lavender and teal colours (plus a staid white). The pastel shades blend into home décor, unlike the HomePod mini’s bright colours, and the smaller 3.9-by-3.3-inch footprint means it’s compact enough to be tucked away in narrow spaces. You get the usual volume controls and microphone mute buttons on the top, but they are angled away and less visible when you’re facing the speaker…so you’re almost encouraged to control the volume by voice. Setup is a breeze, more so if you have another Echo already set up with your home Wi-Fi – my only gripe was that it uses a proprietary power supply and cable instead of boarding the USB-C train.

Of course, with Alexa as the digital assistant, the Pop can allow you to do anything the bigger, more expensive Echo devices, sans any skills that rely on the motion and temperature sensors that the recent fifth-gen Echo Dot offered (which the Pop lacks). It also lacks an accelerometer, so you can’t tap to pause music playback as on the Dot.

Now, while it may be diminutive, the Pop also has a slightly larger front-firing speaker than the fifth-generation Dot (1.95-in vs 1.73-in), which lets it get plenty loud for its size. It sounds okay for alarms, interacting with Alexa and casual listening in the background, managing a surprising amount of clarity on string instruments and vocals, but it struggles on bass and low-end thump as you bump up the volume. The three-microphone array is sensitive enough to pick up commands from another room or while music is playing…and Alexa responses are blazing quick with Amazon’s AZ2 chip, which makes this perfect for a first Alexa for the kids as well or for dipping your toes in Alexa ‘Echo-system’.

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The colours may be the clincher for the kids. However, if you’re looking for better sound and better smart home integration, the additional outlay (Rs. 5,499) for the Echo Dot fifth-gen starts sounding like a better idea.

Rating: 7/10

Price: Rs. 4,999