Gadgetory

how's it going everyone I'm Adam Alina so it seems like just yesterday that Google announced two new Google home speakers the mini and the Mac's but that was actually way back in September of 2017 we were completely different people back then now that the Mac's is finally available we can actually answer the question that everyone's been asking since the announcement bucks why would I spend that on a smart speaker why can't I just get the $49 whole mini and call it a day is the whole Mac's really that much better well that's what I'm here to answer so this is the Google home X I know pretty right it's clear that Google put a little more thought into the aesthetics of the speaker the overall design is super minimalist with no buttons to speak of only a mute switch on the back and a touch sensitive control panel up top designated by a thin line whether I have the speaker in the kitchen or on top of a bookshelf in my living room and blend it in perfectly it just became the thing that I can forget about and tell to play music or ask questions and this was the white version if you get the all black color you'll get an even more discreet speaker so at eleven point seven pounds the speaker isn't light so if you were hoping to throw this in your backpack on the way to your friend's house think again pick a spot you like and leave it there the dimensions are roughly 13 by 7 point 4 by 6 inches and it's made of the same kind of hard plastic that you'll find on the OG Google home and smaller home Mini the biggest difference in build materials between them is the fabric that you'll find on the front of the home max which is unique to the home acts not only does it feel good to scratch but it's what Google calls acoustically transparent which basically means it won't interfere with how the sound waves are coming out of the speaker along the back below the mute switch you'll get a power input a USB type-c input and a 3.5 millimeter input so yes if you want to plug in your own gear and make some sick beats with the speaker you can now the home max comes with a little bass pad which sticks to the bottom of the speaker and because the speaker can be oriented horizontally or vertically you will have to pay attention to which way you place it it has to be placed so that the touch controls I either on top or on the right side otherwise you might get this warning that it's upside down by the way the Google home is upside down it'll work best if you turn it over that touch-sensitive strip is basically used for playback controls if you don't feel like using your voice you can swipe to adjust volume and tap to pause or play but unfortunately you'll still have to ask Google to skip to the next song or return to a previous one so I'd note while I'm on the subject I don't know if I have it setup wrong or something but every time I tell the Google home max to put a song and repeat it straight up lies to me it says that the song is on repeat but then when the song finishes it'll just go on playing the next song so along with chromecast built-in and Wi-Fi the Google home max has bluetooth 4.2 built into it so if a friend comes over and you don't feel like sharing your Wi-Fi password for whatever reason they can still connect to the speaker and play music now if you've ever owned the Google home product before the main way you're supposed to interact with it is with your voice and in that respect there's not much new here you can also ask it questions or control compatible smart home devices if you haven't one issue that I didn't really like was that when I was asking to cast Joe Hindi's latest upcoming games video it was a bit slow to show up on my TV but I really didn't like how someone in the comments of that video so that no one likes Harry Potter thumbs up if you know what this means digging further into the Google home set up you'll be able to customize your preferences like your preferred music streaming service including Spotify Pandora and of course Google Play Music or even what kind of news stories you want to hear at the beginning of the day now again these are all technically features that are available on any of the Google home speakers so why by the max well one feature that's unique to the max is the ability to sync up two of them for a stereo pair so if you want to drop a cool $800 on smart speakers you'll have a pretty badass listening station if you're looking for more of a multi-room audio solution you can of course group a few of these together which I have to admit is pretty cool with the home max at the center of the two minis that I have but one issue that I did find consistently was that after a certain volume the microphones in the Google home max just couldn't pick up my voice every time I said the hot work at a hundred percent volume I found myself literally screaming at it to try and get it to stop so it made me think of a super unscientific test basically I recorded myself saying the hot word hey Google at a normal speaking voice and played that clip from a Bluetooth speaker at distances of 5 10 15 and 20 feet all while the speaker was playing the song Havana by Camila Cabello at varying volumes you can see the results for yourself after I passed 50% volume it was really hit or miss and compared to my real life usage I actually thought these results were pretty good to be honest there were times where the music was definitely not louder than 50% and it still couldn't hear what I was saying even if I was standing only a few feet away I don't know what's going on with these mics but it definitely gets a little annoying but the best part of the speaker the reason that you'll probably want to buy it the reason that it's so much better than the whole mini and the reason that I think it's amazing is the sound quality the Google home max sounds really good the base notes are definitely emphasized enough to give them that mainstream bump that so many people will appreciate but it stays well away from beats territory thankfully Google emphasized those low frequencies a little too much for my personal taste but most people will easily enjoy it because of how well-defined it is in a song Moon River by Frank ocean the low e-string is a little too strong for my taste but it does give the song some grittiness and never gets in the way of his vocals in the mid-range which is what counts the bass pad also keeps the rumbling of the speaker from disturbing anything around it and the whole max has 6 internal microphones to detect in real-time how much of its sound waves are being reflected off nearby surfaces and then it corrects for that with an EQ that's built in so you won't need to go into any eq settings on your own because the Google algorithm does it for you now whether that lack of control is a good or a bad thing is up to you since you can't really tweak it but I found it to at least be consistent wherever the speaker was placed the low end didn't drastically change those low end frequencies don't overpower the mids at all and when paired with how loud this thing can get it's perfect for powering your parties that said it sounded good even when playing music at low volumes and I ended up using it to play music in the background throughout my day vocals in the song generator 2nd floor by freelance whales we're still plainly audible even with all of the other instruments joining in during the course at around 2 minutes 17 seconds which included plenty of thumping drums and bells ringing throughout speaking of the bells one of my only issues regarding sound quality it had to do with the high end frequencies it sounds like Google played it safe here and didn't give them the same kind of emphasis as they did with the lows which is understandable because when is the last time you heard someone say drop the bells and max volume nothing really distorts which is good but there also isn't a ton of reverb to high hats and cymbals which can really help with the sound stage of the music and I've owned the Google home basically since it was released and thanks to Black Friday sales I have two of the Google home minis but besides setting timers while cooking asking it basic math questions when I'm feeling lazy or setting alarms I never found any of them particularly useful I definitely don't use them when listening to music because the sound quality is mad at best but I found myself using the Google home max constantly whether it was just to play background music while I worked or to stream YouTube videos to my TV or just listening to podcasts the home X weaved its way into my life in a way that none of the other home speakers have so even though it's a terrible listener I have no problem saying that anyone looking for a smart speaker who values sound quality will probably really love the Google home max and a way that I don't think anyone loved to the other two Google home products but I guess only time will tell and that's it for our 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