Pros & Cons
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- Affordable
- Attractive design
- 3.5mm output
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- Only a cosmetic change from previous model
- Weak bass
Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen (2020) Specs
| Bluetooth | |
| Built-In Voice Assistant | Amazon Alexa |
| Channels | Mono |
| Multi-Room | |
| Physical Connections | 3.5mm |
| Portable | |
| Speakerphone | |
| Water-Resistant | |
| Wi-Fi |
Editors' Note: There is a new version of the Echo Dot available. Check out the Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen)Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen).
It's surprising that it took the $49.99 Echo Dot smart speaker this long to start looking like, well, a dot. The fourth-generation Echo Dot is now a sphere, to mirror the look of the new fourth-gen Echo, albeit in a smaller size for half the price. Not much else has changed here, but the new Echo Dot remains one of the best ways to add Amazon's Alexa voice assistant to every room of your home. That said, we think the LED clock face on the Echo Dot With Clock is worth the extra $10 if you plan on putting the speaker on your desk, nightstand, or anywhere else you use clocks and timers.
Mostly a New Design
The fourth-gen Echo Dot is a 3.9-inch sphere, half plastic and half fabric covered, coming in blue, dark gray, or white. On the top there are four physical buttons for volume up, volume down, activating Alexa, and turning the mic off. The blue light ring that shows when Alexa is listening has migrated from the top of the speaker to the bottom, making the surface underneath glow softly. The back features the power adapter and a 3.5mm audio output for connecting the Echo Dot to a larger speaker.
Along with the standard model, there's an Echo Dot for Kids, pictured below, where the cover looks like a cute tiger or a panda. You'll pay $10 more for it, but you also get a two-year warranty and a yearlong subscription to Amazon Kids+, the former FreeTime Unlimited kids' content service. That's at least a $36 value, although the Kids+ pricing is a little complicated. There's also the aforementioned Echo Dot With Clock, the exact same Echo Dot but with a digital LED clock display, for $59.99.
Don't expect better sound here; this is largely a cosmetic change. The Echo Dot still has a 1.6-inch driver and a 3.5mm line out to power more capable speakers. If you want better sound, you'll have to step up to the fourth-gen Echo with its 3-inch woofer and dual 0.8-inch tweeters.
Amazon Alexa
Like every Echo speaker before it, the new Echo Dot lets you access Amazon's Alexa voice assistant simply by saying, "Alexa," followed by a command. Alexa can answer general questions; provide information like weather forecasts and unit conversion; control smart home devices; make phone calls and in-home voice calls to other Alexa devices; and play music from Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and SiriusXM (if you want to listen to music on other services, the Echo Dot also has Bluetooth).
Alexa is useful, but its syntax tends to be very strict compared with Google Assistant, which you get on the $50 Nest Mini and the $100 Nest Audio. We've found that Google Assistant is better at recognizing natural language, particularly when controlling smart home devices. Amazon continues to develop Alexa and is working on improving its natural language recognition, but for now Google Assistant has the edge in simply being easier to talk to.
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Audio Performance
You won't get room-filling power or low-frequency rumble with the Echo Dot. The speaker handled our bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," without much bass response to speak of. At maximum volume levels, the kick drum and bass synth sound poppy at best, and lean toward distortion at worst.
Yes' "Roundabout" comes through a bit better on the Echo Dot, but it still lacks much in the way of bass response. The opening acoustic guitar plucks get some string texture, but also sound a bit hollow and slightly tinny. When the track properly kicks in, the mix sounds reasonably balanced, but any bass takes a backseat to the vocals, which stand firmly in the front. This is a highs-focused sound signature, with little in the lower frequencies to even it out.
Like the previous version, the new Echo Dot doesn't sound terrible, it just doesn't have the power or range to really offer a listening experience that can fill a room with well-balanced audio. But that isn't the point: The Echo Dot is designed for bringing Alexa's voice assistance prowess to your desk, kitchen, nightstand, or any other part of your home. If you want an Alexa speaker primarily for listening to music, you'll need to upgrade to the $99 Echo or the $199 Echo Studio.
More for Alexa, Less for Music
We've reviewed Echo Dot speakers for years, and they've always been good choices for everything but music. Of course, that's because Alexa is about far more than music: It's about answering questions, controlling smart home devices, listening to podcasts, talking to family members with an in-home intercom, getting homework help, and thousands of add-on voice skills. The Dot is your gateway to all of that.
Its top competition in the Echo world is the $24.99 Echo Flex, which looks like a plug-in air freshener except it's full of Alexa rather than a chemical "fresh breeze" scent. The Flex is good if you have another speaker to connect to it, but its tiny driver isn't even strong enough for calls and podcasts if there's any other sound in the room. Meanwhile, on the Google Assistant side of things, the Nest Mini offers similarly helpful smart features through Google's voice assistant rather than Amazon's, though its audio quality is a bit worse than even the Echo Dot's.
There's little reason to get the new Echo Dot if you already have a third-generation model. It's effectively the same speaker, just in a different design. But if you're just looking to get a smart speaker and want something with a little more power than the Echo Flex, the fourth-gen Echo Dot is a fine choice that costs half as much as the full-size Echo. You should consider spending the extra $10 on the Echo Dot with Clock, though—that helpful display really makes it stand out as an ideal nightstand speaker, and earns it our Editors' Choice award.