We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. Voice assistants have come a long way over the last few years, from an often-confused voice in your smartphone, to voice-activated smart speakers, to touch-screen smart displays that can connect you to friends and information in a snap. Amazon got the dedicated voice assistant ball rolling with the Alexa-powered Echo, and came up with one of the first smart displays in the form of the Echo Show. Google followed suit with the Home smart speaker and Home Hub (now Nest Hub) smart display. And plenty of third parties like JBL and Lenovo have also been getting into the mix. The first Echo Show was a little rough around the edges, but the second-generation model fixed nearly all of our complaints and earned our Editors' Choice award. Amazon impressed us again with the half-sized Echo Show 5, which trades much of the larger Echo Show's audio power for a sub-$100 price. Then there's the Google Nest Hub. We reviewed it when it was called the Google Home Hub, and it hasn't actually changed in any way aside from the name. Its small size and price make it more comparable with the Echo Show 5 and the Amazon Echo Spot than the full-size Echo Show, which is why the larger (and presumably louder) Nest Hub Max will soon be available. With all of these smart displays on the market, which one should you get? Let's break it down. Amazon Alexa vs. Google Assistant Echo devices use Alexa, while Google Home devices use Google Assistant. Both have seen some major upgrades over the years, but they're also still works in progress. Google Assistant is much better than Alexa at parsing natural language. Amazon's voice assistant is picky with syntax, though it has gotten better with steady updates. Google Assistant doesn't get confused by wording as easily as Alexa, so you can speak more naturally and not have to worry as much about phrasing your commands properly. Alexa has much more robust third-party support, with thousands of skills that can be enabled to perform specific tasks, like ordering a pizza or telling a story. You can also make your own simple Alexa skills easily with Alexa Blueprints. They can be handy, but the vast majority of skills are more gimmicky than genuinely useful, and you still need to dance around Alexa's syntax to use them. Alexa also supports many more smart home devices for voice control than Google Assistant, though both cover the big names like Philips Hue lights and Nest thermostats, and even get live video from connected security cameras and video doorbells. Frankly, unless you have some very esoteric home automation devices, you can probably control your smart home with either voice assistant. Screen For size, the Echo Show currently has the biggest touch screen at 10 inches with a 1,280-by-800 resolution; the Nest Hub Max will have a comparable display. The Echo Show 5 and Nest Hub are both much smaller, respectively featuring 5.5-inch, 960-by-480 and 7-inch, 1,024-by-600 screens. Size isn't everything, and the Echo Show devices really pull ahead on the screen front in usefulness. The Nest Hub and other Google Assistant smart displays do fairly little with their touch screens aside from offering controls for smart home devices. The Echo Show and Echo Show 5, meanwhile, feature video streaming apps with touch controls for selecting content, as well as functional web browsers. Sound The Echo Show's 2-inch, 10-watt stereo drivers are impressively powerful for any speaker in its price range (even with some unusually extreme sculpting). The Nest Hub, meanwhile, sounds fairly mediocre. It's a drastic difference in size and power between the two devices, and the Echo Show 5 is much closer to the Nest Hub in sound quality. If you want real room-filling audiom the Echo Show is your best choice right now. The Nest Hub Max might present stiff competition, though, considering how powerful the Google Home Max speaker is. Media Support Neither the Echo Show nor the Nest Hub are primarily designed for movies or TV shows, but they still serve as speakers for listening to music, and have some support for video. This is where your streaming service preferences come in. The Echo Show and Echo Show 5 can access Amazon Music and Amazon Video, along with OTA recordings on the Fire TV Recast. The Nest Hub can access YouTube Music and YouTube for video. The full-size Echo Show has some compelling third-party video services available, like Hulu, NBC, and Vevo, while the Echo Show 5 lacks Hulu. The Nest Hub doesn't offer much direct third-party video support, but its Google Cast compatibility lets you stream some video from your phone to the device. Third-party music is a bit more flexible, with iHeartRadio, Pandora, and Spotify available on both devices. If you can't find a streaming app or service, you can send any audio from your phone or tablet to either device over Bluetooth. Size The Echo Show is big, while the Echo Show 5 and Nest Hub are small. The Echo Show measures 6.9 by 9.7 by 4.2 inches (HWD), which means it can fit on a broad shelf or counter, but will look a bit out of place on a nightstand or crowded desk. The Nest Hub is much smaller at 4.6 by 7.0 by 2.6 inches, while the Echo Show 5 is the smallest at 3.4 by 5.8 by 2.9 inches. Because of this, the Echo Show 5 is best suited as a "smart clock" to keep by your bed, while the Echo Show would be more at home on a table or counter. The Nest Hub sits in the middle, but if you can find an extra inch or two of clearance it can be very functional as a smart clock as well. For a completely different form factor, we also like the small, round Echo Spot for nightstands. Price This is also pretty straightforward, and matches the sizes of the devices. The Echo Show is the most expensive device at $230, followed by the Nest Hub at $130, then the Echo Show 5 at $90. The Echo Show 5 wins out as the most compelling smart display available for under $100, but again the Nest Hub presents some usefulness and value in its slightly larger size. The Verdict The second-generation Echo Show is the best smart display of the three based on pure size and power, and the Echo Show 5 is a fantastic value with its $90 price tag. The Nest Hub is useful, but not particularly impressive in audio performance, and its touch screen feels underutilized. The big question is whether the Nest Hub Max will be a strong competitor to the full-size Echo Show. The Google Home Max stands out as one of the most powerful smart speakers we've seen, which makes us hopeful. Our eyes and ears will have to compare the two when the Nest Hub Max comes out. And if you're looking for speakers, check out our our story on the Amazon Echo vs. the Google Home.

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