Lenovo Smart Display aims to take on the Echo Show, but Google still has a lot of work to do

Lenovo Smart Display is Google's play against Amazon's Echo Show. If the Google Assistant is primed to compete against Amazon's Alexa in a game of "show and tell," it has its work cut out for it. Beginning this weekend, Lenovo becomes the first of Google's consumer tech partners to bring out a Google Smart Display smart speaker, which has a screen to visually complement whatever you ask the Google Assistant, woken up with a familiar "OK Google" or "Hey Google" voice command. In so doing, Google (via Lenovo) is pitted against its most obvious direct competitor, the Echo Show from Amazon, which was the first of the Alexa-based smart speakers to add a display. I was able to use the Lenovo Smart Display to surface my Google Calendar and Google Photos, watch news from CNN and Reuters, set timers, play music on Spotify, make a video call through the Google Duo app, and check out YouTube videos on such topics as making sushi. As with the Google Home speakers without a screen, you can use Smart Displays to control such things as your Nest thermostats and Philips Hue lightbulbs.