Gadgetory

my feelings going into this video are no secret I'm on the record and more than once as thinking that smart speakers like the Amazon echo and Google home are kind of cool and with the potential to be awesome in the future but right now not useful enough to warrant their three digit price tags but what if 50 bucks got you all the same functionality introducing the Google home Mini as smart as the original but at just thirty eight point five percent of the cost and speaking of smart only the smartest sponsors like ZOTAC support our channel there ZBOX pcs are great for applications like streaming and gaming and feature Intel's seventh generation core processors in a tiny form factor check them out at the link below design-wise the Google home mini nails it it's smaller than a donut weighs only a hundred and seventy grams that's 5.99 seven ounces and comes in three distinct colors unlike its rival the Amazon echo dot many has no visible buttons relying instead on a touch sensitive fabric top to adjust the volume and craftily stealth indicator lights for visual feedback now originally you could tap the middle to play in pause and to Hale the assistant without using your voice but that functionality has actually since been disabled possibly forever according to a Google statement since some kind of bug was causing the mini to record audio without you asking that means physically there's really not much to it anymore there's a hardware switch for disabling the minis microphones outright when you want some definite privacy and then next to it a port for plugging in the power cable which is USB micro-b instead of see what I mean given you get a free mini with the purchase of a pixel to phone it would be in face of the two products at interchangeable power cables maybe we'll get that on the next-gen on the subject of the power cable no the ho mini is not Wireless though for some things that would be kind of nice even if the battery life sucked being able to cart it over to the shower or put it on the workbench next to you in the garage would be kind of killer with the flipside being that it could easily get lost if the battery died between a couch cushion and you know Google's got to get that money so they would probably much rather you carry your phone around with you and then fill your house up with these things anyhow speaking of do I need to already have a full sized Google home for the mini to work and what's the difference between the two anyway as with the Amazon echo and the echo dot the only difference is the size and the price oh right and also the audio quality so how bad is that speaker well the mini single 40 millimeter driver emits equally in all directions and actually my first impressions anyway is that the speaker isn't that bad the assistants voice in particular is full-bodied and clear and as for music there are only a handful of phones that I've used with what I would call acceptable speakers some many of them are even discomfort inducing at normal listening volumes for me but this is quite a bit better than that the quality is more on par with or even exceeding what you might expect from a laptop and it's surprisingly loud so you could use it instead of your Bluetooth speaker that is to say as long as you have a power plug nearby and the experience gets even better when you link a few of these bad boys along with any other Google home or chromecast enabled devices in a multi speaker setup now compared to my solo set up at home it doesn't sound as good but it's really cost-effective and the voice controls let you adjust the volume of the entire group or individuals without using an app even if you want to turn down the mini that you aren't directly speaking to with all that said I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to music on these especially just one of them but I don't think Google wants you to do that anyway that's what the $400 home max is for we're hoping to review that one shortly to evaluate its superior auditory experience because we don't have hands-on with it yet I can't draw a conclusion but I will say that it would have to be pretty impressive because sound from the mini can actually be piped through third-party speakers provided that big asterisk here they are chromecast enabled or you have a chromecast Audio dongle for them because unlike the echo dot but like the pixel to the mini does not have a three-and-a-half millimeter audio out Jack so that you could hardline at the old fashioned way this appears to be a clear cost-saving issue and is one of our biggest knocks against this product but enough about the hardware let's talk about the software experience along with the visting home features like using it as a voice remote for your TV which is so super cool by the way the mini is also rolling out some new tricks broadcast is an upcoming feature that lets you send messages throughout the house in the assistance voice annoying eagle is returning to nest I repeat annoying eagle is returning to nest so that's pretty cool and voice match lets mini know who it's talking to okay Google tell me about my day good morning Alex it will take you 45 minutes to get to work so multiple users can link their accounts and commands like call mom will actually call your mom and not your roommates mom unless that's what you were going for which brings us to the best new ish feature free non-emergency calling within the US and Canada which came out about a month ago you can call any local business or any contact that's in your phone and the thing that's actually new new is that now you can actually link your number to it so that phone calls coming from the Google home will look like they are coming from your phone and it's smart so you can speak to it naturally some stuff that seems pretty obvious to me doesn't work yet like returning your last missed call but other things that we tried worked surprisingly well like redialing the last number that you called or hey Google call the closest open pizza place calling Pizza Hut on 56 Avenue in Surrey and this kind of functionality also syncs with your phone like if you ask many how to get to the aforementioned pizza place it'll be MIT over to your handheld device and it works the other way too you can browse for recipes on your phone and then send the one that you want over to the assistant with okay Google start cooking like anything though it's not a perfect product and we do have some complaints Google home still a year later can't send a text message sorry I can't send text yet probably because they don't have enough confidence in its voice recognition to send out messages from a device that you can't preview them on yet and this one is even more relevant to me it doesn't sync with G sweet Google's enterprise level product so since my entire life is basically work and I use my corporate email account for everything this effectively means I can't use it for my calendar at all so for you though is this the smart speaker to get I still need that work integration but for everyone else men since echo still isn't available in Canada at 50 bucks I really don't see what you have to lose this is a great place to start if you want to join the smart speaker revolution and speaking of joining the revolution if you're a small business owner fresh books is the way to go fresh books has changed the way that freelancers and small businesses handle their accounting with their cloud-based software it's a way to be more productive more organized and get paid faster so you can create and send professional-looking invoices in less than 30 seconds set up online payments with just a couple of clicks to get paid up to four days faster you can see when your client has seen your invoice putting an end to the guessing gains and the whole experience is available not just on the desktop but on Android and iOS as well so for an unrestricted 30-day free trial go to FreshBooks comm slash tech tips and 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