I am absolutely amazed at the sound quality for starters. I purchased an Echo 5 as well, which will replace my Echo dot in my kitchen where I have less space, but this is about the Echo 8. Promising review: " Hands down, this is by far the best item I have ever purchased for myself on Amazon. I was in desperate need of replacing my alarm clock on my nightstand, so I decided to go with the Echo 8 over the Echo 5. Price: $164.96 (originally $209.95 available in three colors) Looking forward to hopefully years of good use." - Anthony L. The machine also came with a 12 pod assortment, which was fun to try different things and order more if you like. I ordered some single and double espresso options to try. The Vertuo coffee pods are not bad! I was pleasantly surprised. I think it's quiet enough to not wake up household members. The Vertuo Next machine is fairly loud, not horrible, but when spinning the coffee it's make a good amount of noise and vibration on the counter top. The amount of options for anyone in the household is really handy. Pods are available from one shot espresso to large cup of drip. Insert pod, lock the top down, and press one-time the only button on the machine. However in our vacation home I did not want to replicate that entire setup, so instead ordered a Nespresso Vertuo Next machine. Each morning I was used to grinding and brewing a fresh quad-shot latte. I have a Breville semi-automatic espresso machine and separate Breville espresso grounder in our primary home. Promising review: "Admittedly I'm a little bit of a coffee snob. Price: $33.69 (originally $49.99 also available in Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, and French). Highly recommend for all preschoolers and older kids!" - JC Mommy Promising review: "This is by far one of the coolest products I’ve ever seen! My 4-year-old loves this talking microscope! Every day while her baby sister naps I spend some quality one on one time with her and this was the perfect product for our special time together! She didn’t want to stop looking at all the different slides and I love how each slide has three images and the fact mode shares fun facts about the slide chosen! I love that she was learning new facts while looking at it up close! She has been having so much fun using it and asks me daily to use her new microscope! This is such a great learning tool in a fun, different way for a four year old and it is a big win in my book especially because it can be used for many, many years! It also includes a quiz mode that we haven’t used yet but it’s nice that it has different modes for older kids. Although, you can also say "Alexa make a phone call." "Who do you wish to call?" "555-xxxxxxx." All in all, Alexa is almost exactly what I was hoping for. You need to give Alexa access to your contacts for this to work. In the past, one could not call someone or send and receive texts.
But if I want to switch to music, no problem. She (anthropomorphization intentional) operates just like any other Alexa. After pairing my car to my phone, Alexa becomes available as long as your phone has WiFi. In fact I do not have any current complaints. At one point, every time I re-entered my car and restarted it.
At first, the Echo Auto kept losing connection to my phone. These was sold early to Prime Members requesting one. I have been listening to audio books via my Bose Headphones. Promising review: "For the moment, this is the pièce de résistance in my Alexa life.