Gadgetory

the dream to talk to our computers and interact with services like characters can in science-fiction we've got a ways to go but competition will get us there faster Amazon is supporting another Android phone bringing Alexa to the HTC u 11 so it's time to take a look at what you can and can't do by talking to software how do these ecosystems currently compare the U 11 turns out to be a killer testbed for this kind of showdown for being a powerful phone with great microphones and good speakers now what we're talking about today is different than the Alexa companion app which all phones can use HTC joins Huawei and having a specialty app produced for more echo like interaction for the full Amazon experience you'll want to install both of these apps pitting Amazon and Google head-to-head there's some overlap in covering the voice search basics we're always dying to show you how voices can tell you the weather or complete an inquiry into the captainship of our favorite starship of course I'm joking voice search isn't really all that impressive these days what is kind of fun though is plugging an Android phone into amazon's playground of services there are a ton of skills to choose from audio mini apps that can deliver news reports play your podcasts and interact with a variety of IOT devices though I wish the Seinfeld trivia app had more questions I maxed that thing out pretty quick Alexa's vibe is really fluid chaining together comments where Google assistant is more of a one-and-done style interaction and Amazon's outreach has been terrific working with third-party developers to support smart home devices and fitness trackers and not too shabby for a product that started out as a voice in a fancy Bluetooth speaker the main difference between Alexa and Google's assistant is the output from a query both can talk to you but only Google will display text to compliment answers or confirm commands what Alexa isn't so great at is controlling stuff on your phone she's pretty good at searching and shopping through Amazon but obviously she won't help you search for other buying options and while Amazon music is expected Alexa won't plug into other music services like Spotify or Pandora lastly this is still a separate service which runs on the phone HTC and Amazon have worked together to deliver voice activation though it can't clear your lock screen but integration is still very surface level when compared to Google's native voice interactions like the ability to control phone hardware enable and disable phone radios Google assistant is a native part of the operating system and that helps quite a bit at working with all of the guts of Android like the ability to open apps and message contacts and messaging might be frustrating for some amazon has a service called drop-in calling which is currently not supported on the phone build of Alexa so let's wrap this up Alexa Google assistant which should you use well why not both the great thing about the you 11 you get a triple whammy of software Butler's to improve your interactions it's one of the only phones with this amount of user assistance Google Amazon and HTC zone quieter assistant aiming to proactively feed you relevant info when all of this is on one phone it can feel a touch schizophrenic and the user needs to remember which assistant is capable of what function but you ultimately get the most complete vision for what we can currently do with Voice Actions Amazon's great network of home automation and shopping side-by-side googles on phone control and app integration we've seen a lot of commentary which implies this is an either/or choice but there's nothing really stopping you from using both in the growing AI space of series Bixby's and Cortana's this Amazon and Google combo is actually pretty handy as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and help us out with a share on your favorite social networks for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos bag now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review you