Lenovo Smart Display Review: More Than A Google Home With A Screen
Lenovo Smart Display Review: More Than A Google Home With A Screen
2018-08-15
so this is the Lenovo smart display it's
a display that is smart and it's one of
the first of its kind it's essentially a
Google home with a screen and it can do
all the Google home stuff that you would
expect like giving you the weather your
calendar events information the ability
to turn your lights on and off in your
home but because it has a screen it can
do a whole lot more now because this is
something that goes inside of your home
it's pretty important that it blends
into your decor and I'll be perfectly
honest I'm not the biggest fan of the
way that it looks I don't really like
the asymmetrical shape and it also has a
bamboo back if you get the 10 inch
version which doesn't really match a
whole lot of things in my home but if
you like bamboo and if it matches the
stuff that you have you'll probably like
this a lot more but if you want
something a little bit more playing you
also have the 8 inch version which just
has a standard white back so the
original Google home actually had a
really good sounding speaker and with a
large speaker grille on the front of the
Lenovo smart display you might expect
this to sound just as good but it
actually lacks a lot of low-end punch a
lot of bass and if you're listening to a
lot of treble heavy music at max volume
it actually sounds a little bit
distorted with this speaker it's gonna
be perfectly fine for podcasts and just
normal dialogue but if you're listening
to music it's not gonna be the greatest
experience now the large bass and
asymmetrical design does allow you to
put these smart display in portrait mode
but there aren't a whole lot of things
that support portrait mode right now
aside from Google duo so you're probably
not gonna be using it in portrait mode
all that often and it's actually a lot
better in landscape anyways you'll also
notice that there's a webcam on the
front for making video calls over Google
duo and there's also a privacy shutter
which you can use to cover up the webcam
just in case you're concerned about the
NSA spying on you so if you like to use
this in your bathroom or in your bedroom
you're gonna be perfectly safe because
the smart display has a screen it
actually adds more functionality than
you would get from a normal Google home
so for example if you were to ask for a
cooking recipe you'd get the entire
recipe displayed to you on the screen
itself and you can also watch you
- and or to show you other things you
would normally see on your smartphone
from Google like the weather your flight
information calendar events and your
google play music the operating system
that the smart display runs on is
actually not Android it's Android things
and this is completely new and one of
the biggest things that you need to know
about it is that's very simple and very
basic and it's just designed to blend
into your home and it doesn't actually
have any applications everything is
pretty much just baked and already
there's no Google Play Store here you
won't be downloading your favorite games
or applications everything is just only
smart display itself already but not
everything is a hundred percent
supported on the smart display you'll
find stuff like YouTube and Google Play
Music but other applications like
Netflix and twitch are not supported but
you do have the option to stream
applications from your phone to the
smart display so you can still watch
Netflix and watch twitch on the smart
display you just have to use your smart
phone to do it the UI itself is also
very simple everything's laid out in a
card and it's also very big so pretty
much anyone can figure out how to use
this UI and navigating it is also a
simple process tapping on the ambi
display will launch into the UI itself
and swiping in from the left edge will
always take you back a step and if you
swipe in from the left edge enough times
it will eventually take you back to the
ambient display if you want to pick up
one of these guys the 10-inch version of
the smart display is gonna run you $250
and the smaller eight-inch model is
gonna be $200 comparatively speaking the
regular Google home is a hundred and
twenty dollars normally but you can find
it a lot cheaper when it goes on sale so
let's essentially double the price if
you're going for the ten inch model and
you basically have to decide if having
that screen and having that webcam is
worth the extra cost it does add a lot
of nice functionality you can see visual
information you can also enjoy content
like YouTube Netflix and twitch directly
on your smart display which is something
that you can't do with a normal Google
home and I do like that aspect of the
smart display I like that
consume content and other features are
really cool with these smart displays
while being able to physically interact
with it versus just using your voice all
the time so that's really it for the
Lenovo smart display it's a pretty sweet
product definitely check it out read our
written article which we'll have a lot
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