Amazon expands the Echo Show family with prettier, smarter, and more powerful 8 and 11-inch models

This new Echo Show 8 looks a lot sleeker than the old Echo Show 8

Because Amazon couldn’t have possibly made its latest smart displays look like spheres (as is the case with the new Echo Studio and Echo Dot Max), the fourth-gen Echo Show 8 considerably reduces the bezels of its 2023-released predecessor, which allows it to squeeze quite a bit more screen real estate into a very similar package from a weight perspective.

Although I wouldn’t go so far as to call the new Echo Show 8 a complete redesign of the 2023 edition, you’re clearly looking at a more elegant device here with a significantly slimmer profile, a virtually unchanged 13MP auto-framing camera squeezed into that thinner top bezel, and perhaps most importantly, a higher-quality 8.7-inch screen promising improved clarity regardless of surrounding lighting conditions and “maximized” viewing angles.

The display is not particularly impressive in terms of its resolution, slightly bumping up the pixel count from 1280 x 800 to a 1340 x 800 mark that obviously doesn’t cross from the HD to the Full HD category.

The sound performance is also enhanced thanks to a totally new “audio architecture” with front-facing stereo speakers “strategically placed under the floating display” to deliver crystal clear tunes directly toward the user and a custom woofer capable of producing “room-filling” spatial audio.

The first-of-a-kind Echo Show 11 might be the best smart display to buy right now

Look, both the upgraded Echo Show 8 and the all-new Echo Show 11 are great, packing super-powerful sound, supporting all the state-of-the-art Alexa+ skills right out of the box, and not exactly costing a fortune when you think about it.

But the Echo Show 11 is a little better, and not just because it’s bigger. Its key strength is probably the quality of that extra-large 10.95-inch screen, which sports a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, thus entering Full HD territory.

The Echo Show 11 is big, undeniably stylish, and super-powerful. | Image Credit — Amazon

The Echo Show 8 (4th Gen) and the Echo Show 11 are naturally unlikely to receive any price cuts during that 48-hour event, mainly because their actual release is set for November 12. You can pre-order the larger of the two models today for $219.99, which feels like a more than fair price considering that aforementioned screen resolution and size, but the otherwise unchanged list of features and capabilities from the slightly cheaper new Echo Show 8.

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