The Amazon Echo Show takes the Alexa voice assistant and squeezes it into a cross between a digital photo frame, small TV and smart speaker for something that's more than just an interesting novelty. The Echo Show is effectively what you get if you took an Alexa-integrated Fire tablet, put a powerful speaker on the bottom and framed it with glossy black plastic. The result is a rather monolithic look. For such a small thing it looks fairly imposing, and has split opinion of visitors to my house 50:50 on whether it's attractive, but placed in a corner or on a shelf, it can easily blend in with the surroundings. In fact, when it's not actively doing something, the Echo Show can operate like a smart, internet-connected version of those digital photo frames that quickly went out of fashion.

The Echo Show is not just Amazon's best smart speaker, it's the most capable mainstream smart home assistant on the market. An Intel Atom x5-Z8350 processor and a 7-inch color touchscreen pumps its price tag up to $230, but the display is worth the added cost to have at least one in a smart home with other Echo speakers. And the Show's eight-element far-field mic array is stronger than the ones on Amazon's other Echos, which for me eliminated the need to have an Echo Dot in an adjoining room. Amazon takes full advantage of that display, providing not just useful visual feedback, but also an in-home intercom--with video, if two Echo Shows are used--and a VoIP-type videophone system. I'll elaborate on the intercom feature shortly.

Amazon's Echo lineup of smart home speakers traditionally has looked the same as any traditional speaker, but its latest update significantly shakes up Amazon's popular product lineup. The Echo Show is the newest Alexa-powered speaker for the online retailer, and unlike past models, the Show includes a touchscreen and camera. Around the web, reviewers have generally been fans of the new hybrid smart speaker though some are hesitant about its major features. Apple HomePod: Which Device Do Consumers Want? Externally, the Echo is anchored around a 7-inch display that shows information like the weather, song lyrics and menus.

You can make video calls through Echo Show. NEW YORK--Alexa can show you stuff as well as tell. You and Amazon's cloud-based personal assistant have been on a first name basis ever since the debut of the company's popular voice-driven Echo speaker. Now that Amazon will begin shipping Echo Show this week, the first Echo with a built-in screen, I can not only envision how you and Alexa might spend more time together, but how Alexa might bring you closer to family and friends. Chief reason: merely by asking, Alexa can initiate video calls, including a special type of "drop in" call reserved for loved ones, of which I'll have more to say below. I've been testing Echo Show for just shy of a week and expect it to be a hit, as much for its potential as for where it will be on launch day.

Siri may have ushered in the era of the digital assistant, but Amazon's Echo (with Alexa) really took that concept and put it in our homes. The Echo wasn't an immediate, breakout hit -- but having Alexa around to ask questions, manage smart-home devices, play music and much more has turned out to be a pretty great thing. It's a concept Google and Apple are now chasing (to varying degrees), but Amazon isn't standing still. The $230 Echo Show is the first Echo with a touchscreen, and since it was announced, we've been wondering how much a display will really add to the Alexa experience. It depends on what you want to do with it and where you put the Echo Show in your home.

Every morning, as I survey the landscape of jeans and blue gingham shirts in my dresser, I ask Alexa about the weather. One day last week, as my virtual assistant chirped out of Amazon's new Echo Show smart speaker, I noticed the voice sounded muffled. I walked into the kitchen and found the Show's 7-inch screen facing the wall. I asked Anna, my fiancée, if she'd moved it. "Yeah," she said, between yoga poses on our living room floor.