This is the review of the comparison between two speakers from two popular brands such as Amazon and Google. The comparison here is between the Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen and the Google Nest Mini. To know which one is good for you to buy, go to the detailed review.

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen	Google Nest Mini
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Eye-catching spherical design. Space-age aesthetic. Alexa functionality keeps getting better. The LED clock display is natural for the Echo Dot.	Wall mountable. Relatively inexpensive. Adjusts sound based on background noise. Three microphones.
CONS	CONS
Somewhat bigger than its predecessor. Directional, shallow sound. Considerably taller than its predecessor.	Sounds shrill at high volumes. No stereo separation. Same look as the previous model. Average audio quality.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen

The Amazon Echo Dot 4the Gen is one of the great updated smart speakers in the market that are retailing for a budget-friendly price range. This smart speaker is retailing for around fifty dollars currently on Amazon. You can not only use this speaker for voice assistance but also for intercom purposes.

Google Nest Mini

The Google Nest Mini is one of the most important products that Google makes. It’s the most accessible ambient computing product in Google’s lineup. The Nest Mini is the perfect smart speaker for playing music and media, controlling your smart home devices, and answering general queries and helping you with everyday tasks. Overall I think it’s a worthy successor to the Google Home Mini.

DESIGN:

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen

As far as the design I have the white color unit which is actually a little more like light gray and not completely white like the previous Echo Dot. It has a very familiar fabric mesh on the top that we see on all the Echo devices. We have the same four buttons placed very strategically a little behind, giving it a more clean look. We have the setup action button, the volume up and down button, and the mic mute button. As far as the mic, there are no visible mics on the new Echo Dot unlike we saw on all the previous Echo speakers, surely they’re hidden somewhere behind the mesh.

Towards the back is the power input and 3.5 aux out, so you can connect it to any external speaker or home theater system using a simple aux cable. The iconic ring light on the Alexa speaker which was usually on the top is at the bottom in this new one. when I saw the pics at launch I was like why down wouldn’t it be hard for anyone to see but actually they look amazing below. The ring casts light on the table it’s placed on and trust me it looks so beautiful.

Google Nest Mini

When you’re playing any media on the Nest Mini you have a couple of options when it comes to controlling that media on the device itself. You could of course use your voice to play, pause, skip, increase or decrease the volume, or you could use the touch controls on the device itself. When you place your hand near a Nest Mini when media is playing the volume LEDs will illuminate. Tap the volume buttons to raise or lower the volume, to play or pause the media that you’re listening to, tap the top part of the speaker once. There’s one more button on the Nest Mini to talk about and that’s the mute switch at the back of the device. Unlike other smart speakers out there it’s a physical switch. So when you mute the Nest Mini, the connection to the microphone is physically disconnected, meaning there’s no way to turn on the mics on the Nest Mini if it has been muted. You can still cast music and media to a muted Nest Mini and the touch controls will still work.

FEATURES:

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen

The size of the Echo Dot is about a season cricket ball or maybe a tad bigger and it weighs around 342 grams, light enough for you to move it to a different room or a kitchen shelf when you need it. But there is no internal battery to use outdoors. The new Echo Dot has a 1.6-inch upward-firing speaker which should definitely sound better compared to its predecessor. For those who are considering buying the first Echo speaker, you need to know two things first an internet connection is needed to use an Echo device, and also, you can also use your mobile hotspot to run the Echo speaker. Secondly, you can speak to it in English, and also, you can change the language in the Alexa app settings.

The Echo speaker supports two way Bluetooth which means you can connect your phone to the Echo speaker and play music from the speaker, and secondly you can connect the Echo speaker to your home theater system or soundbar and the sound will come from the soundbar and music system which is great for house parties. So this two-way Bluetooth thing is going to be very helpful for many of us. The Echo supports a lot of music streaming apps Amazon music will work if you have a Prime membership, if not you can also stream from Spotify and Apple Music if you have a subscription for them. All you need to do is go to the Alexa app and choose your preferred streaming app, simple.

The Echo speakers aren’t just about the music it’s a smart speaker that controls your smart home devices, it’s a voice assistant you can ask for the weather, general trivia questions, set reminders set timers when you’re cooking, and tons of skills that you can find in the Alexa app. Skills are what apps are for your phone browse to the Alexa app and you’ll be surprised what this little speaker can do, amazing. By default, the speaker wakes up to the Alexa but I’ve changed it to computer as I didn’t want to wake up your Echo devices which I probably already have done a couple of times, for this you can change it to Alexa, Echo, Amazon or computer in the Alexa app in case you want to change it comes really handy because it wakes up a lot of devices.

Google Nest Mini

One of the main ways to play music on the Nest Mini is to use the Google Assistant, Google’s smart assistant that you use by saying a trigger word “Hey Google”. You say that ask a question and then the Google Assistant will give you an answer, so if you want to play music on the Nest Mini using the Google Assistant, you can play music from Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora iHeartRadio, Deezer, Google Podcasts, and TuneIn.

There’s no Apple Music integration with the Google Assistant on the Nest Mini, so if you have an Android phone and you use Apple Music all you have to do is actually just cast your device’s audio to the Nest Mini and it’ll work over Google’s Chromecast. If you have an iPhone unfortunately that option to use the cast system is not available to you, but the Nest Mini does support Bluetooth pairing so you can simply stream your music to the Nest Mini over Bluetooth. All you have to do is tell Google to enable Bluetooth pairing mode. Take out your phone and open up Bluetooth settings and then pair it with the Nest Mini, you’ll then be able to play whatever you want on your Nest Mini over the Bluetooth connection.

The last feature I want to mention which I use a lot is being able to include the Nest Mini in a Google cast speaker group. In the Google Home app, you can group your Google speakers together to create a speaker group. Moving on the second major thing that I use my Nest Mini for is controlling the smart devices in my home. The Main smart devices I have are my thermostat, smart lightbulbs, and smart plugs. The Google Assistant on the Nest Mini can interact with all the various smart home products I have and control them. So I can ask my Nest Mini to turn down the thermostat, turn on a light, or start a routine that has various actions built-in from a single trigger phase like good morning or bedtime, etc. Routines can be set up on the main page of the Google Home app.

The last main thing I use the Nest Mini for is asking the Google assistant for information or help with household tasks like setting timers and reminders. You can usually ask it anything you’d normally type into a Google search bar and it’ll give you an answer. It’s also really useful for tasks like spelling out words, and it’ll even help you pronounce words. Besides getting information from Google, I’ll also ask the assistant to help me with everyday tasks like setting a reminder for a specific time, taking a note, or setting a timer.

SOUND QUALITY:

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen

The sound is a lot more crisper and brighter than the previous Echo. The clarity is really impressive for such a small speaker. The bass is okay as it’s a 1.6-inch speaker, what do you expect. But definitely, it’s not completely flat, the lows are pretty decent, overall the speaker sounds really rich and sharp definitely better than previous Echo Dots in terms of sound quality. In terms of features, it can do exactly what even the first generation dot can do but one thing it does better than all of them is sound quality, it’s absolutely amazing.

Google Nest Mini

The Nest Mini’s design lends itself to be a pretty great smart speaker for areas in your home that you don’t really care about sound quality. For a $49 US dollar speaker that you can usually get for less than that, it actually sounds pretty good and it does sound better than the Google Home Mini and that’s likely due to the new 40-millimeter driver that is found in the Nest Mini.

WHICH TO BUY?

In my opinion, the Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen is good for you to buy because it sounds better than the Google Nest Mini and also, has many features as such the Google Nest Mini. In fact, you can even check out the Echo Dot 4th Generation with the clock but that will cost you some extra money around 10 dollars more but trust me that’ll be worth it if you need a clock on your desk, it’s great handy. 

Expert Reviews of Amazon Echo Dot 4th Gen:

By Tech Radar
The new Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen) delivers what you’d expect in terms of sound quality and Alexa integration, but it feels like the same internal components from last year packed into a new spherical shell.

By slashgear.com
Alexa is getting a fresh wardrobe for 2020, and the new Echo Dot (4th Gen) is going spherical just like its bigger Echo sibling. As always, the pitch…

By techhive.com
Like chocolate-covered peanut butter or eggs served with bacon, an Amazon Echo Dot with a built-in clock turns out to be a splendid combination. The latest Echo Dot with…

By theverge.com
Amazon may get more attention for its higher-end Echo speakers, such as the Echo Studio and the new 4th Gen Echo, but the humble Echo Dot…

Expert Reviews of Google Nest Mini:

By Gadgets 360
Voice assistants have made it to our phones and our homes. If you have an Android smartphone, chances are that you are already using Google Assistant. Google designed the Home…

By Tech Radar
The Nest Mini is a great deal for your first smart home speaker and a simple solution if you want to extend the Google Assistant experience to others…

By Digital Trends
The Nest Mini (2nd Gen) is Google’s newest Mini Speaker. Released on October 22, 2019, the Nest Mini features an assortment of improvements, like…

By goodhousekeeping.com
The Google Nest Mini (2nd generation) is the same size and shape as its predecessor but certainly sounds better. While there’s a hint of bass, we wouldn’t describe it as…