"Alexa, will you write the review of the Amazon Echo for me?"
Alas, Alexa couldn't -- or rather she couldn't answer my question -- but it didn't hurt to ask, because I know that one day Alexa will be able to create her own review by swiftly combing through a dozen human-made reviews, and condensing them on the fly into a single paragraph, rating and all.
Alexa is the voice behind Echo, Amazon's new voice-activated, cloud-connected wireless speaker, who talks back to you and acts as kind of a personal assistant. But for now she's somewhat limited in her capabilities, though not without some nifty tricks up her sleeve.
But before we get into those tricks, a bit of bookkeeping: Echo carries a list price of $199 (there's no word as to when or if it'll be available internationally, but that price converts roughly to £125 in the UK, or a little over AU$230 in Australia). But if you're an Amazon Prime member, you'll be able to buy the speaker for $99 in its launch phase, which may go on for a few months.
Anybody who wants to buy one, however -- Prime or otherwise - needs to request an invite from Amazon to have a chance to own one. Or you can just spend a lot of money and buy one on eBay, like we did (which I would advise against).
She understands me
How well does Echo work? While it has a few problems, it's one of the better voice-controlled devices I've used and it overall seems to do a better job understanding what you're saying than the improving voice-control systems built into today's iOS (Siri), Android (Google Now) and Windows (Cortana) mobile devices. Notably, Amazon's voice controls for its Fire TV also work well, so it clearly has some talented engineers working on its voice recognition projects.
There are seven microphones embedded in the top of this fairly sleek 9.25-inch (23.5 cm) tall canister-style speaker, which comes in only black for now (I would've liked to have seen a white model). The volume ring on the top of the speaker lights up when you say "Alexa," letting you know she is ready to accept your command. Alexa understood most of mine -- or at least the ones she was supposed to understand.
Also, her voice sounded fairly natural responding to me. I think I like her better than Siri, though I may be slightly biased because my middle name is Alexis. And yes, the voice is personable and "real" enough that it very much feels more natural to refer to Alexa as "she" rather than "it."
You can also call her "Amazon," but that just didn't feel right. (So far as we can tell, you can't change the wake word "name" to anything else, nor can you change the "gender" of the voice.)
Sarah Tew/CNET
To get started, you have to connect the speaker to your home Wi-Fi network through an app on an Android or Amazon Fire tablet or phone and desktop browsers. An iOS app isn't available yet, and at launch there isn't much you can do with an iPhone beyond connecting it to the speaker via Bluetooth and streaming audio to it. Strangely, although the Echo has seven microphones, I couldn't get it to work as a Bluetooth speaker phone, but that functionality may arrive in the future.
In Amazon's ads for the device, it shows various members of a family asking it questions. It works particularly well for getting a weather forecast, both the daily and weekly varieties. You can also ask Alexa the time, to set an alarm or timer for you, add items to your to-do or shopping lists on your tablet or smartphone, and learn fun from facts from her, including definitions of words. And she can even tell a joke.
Sarah Tew/CNET
I was also impressed by the music playback features. If you're a Prime member, you can quickly have Alexa generate a playlist for you or play a particular station based on an artist or an actual station. And she stops the music and raises and lowers the volume on command. At launch, Echo is compatible with Amazon Music, iHeartRadio and TuneIn, and not surprisingly, Alexa also makes it easy for you to buy songs from Amazon.
Amazon Echo talks the talk, but still needs a little work on walking the walk
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