HomePod mini review: Apple's smaller and cheaper smart speaker

Apple's HomePod mini is finally here – the iPhone maker's attempt to break the Amazon Echo-Google Home duopoly and put itself back into the voice assistant race. The HomePod mini costs £99 and sits below the full-sized HomePod costing £279. The speaker looks like a smaller, more spherical version of the big HomePod from almost three years ago. The outside is covered in a recycled plastic fabric mesh and there is a touch-sensitive disc at the top with a coloured LED display that lights up and pulsates as you interact with its voice assistant, Siri. It is an attractive object that is smaller and less prominent than its primary competition, the equally new Amazon Echo and Google Nest Audio.