Echo Show 8 – Smart home display and touchscreen with Alexa – Charcoal BEST SELLER ALEXA FOR SMART HEALTH HOME

★★★★★ Over and over, in the "most helpful" reviews, I read about "ads" displaying. This does NOT ever display ads, it displays Alexa skills and things to try with your device. I read that people cannot get that to stop happening. It's right in the settings: go to: ---Home & Clock--- then: ---Home Content--- then, turn off ---Discovery---, that will end the Alexa skills displaying (may cycle once after setting but then they're gone for good). I kept reading that people who want to use it as a clock were upset that the clock kept getting minimized (to left corner) to show other things. That's because, yet again, they aren't setting it up correctly. So, in the settings: go to: ---Home & Clock--- then: ---Home Content--- then, turn off ---Rotate Continuously---, that will make the Home screen always display a full screen clock. You can also just turn off any content in that list. Note that each time you go into the settings, immediately after, it WILL show you a single skill or any content you left on. But that's it. It will just be a clock from then on, until you interact with it again and then it may display a single skill or that content. Once. Then back to being a full time clock.Full disclosure: I got this to use as an alarm clock and not as a primary viewing assistant. For that, I recommend the larger echo devices. I also got this on Prime Day for $50 (rather than $90). That's a screaming good deal for what is basically a voice activated, smart alarm clock with a lot of different options.Decent Alarm clocks run $30-50 anyways so I thought I'd give this device a try for $50. I should have bought 2. Even for $90, I feel like this is a great device but if you wait, it will eventually go on sale again. I don't intend to use it to watch TV shows or movies, I have TVs, tablets and PCs for that. I saw people mentioning being disappointed in the resolution or screen quality. I don't see the problem. This certainly isn't going to compare to your $300-800 smart phone screen but it's not bad looking when playing videos or displaying the clock. It's similar to say, an iPhone 3 or Galaxy S2. I feel like the people complaining are expecting "the moon" for the money this costs. It's $90. Not $150 or $200.There was alot of fairly bad reviews on the echo 5, but I wanted something bigger that I could use to see my ring doorbell video. Setup was easy and got it running no problem. Tried "alexa show me the front door"... and nothing worked!! No panic, went and pushed the ring doorbell and checked my phone, live video seen no problem. OK, try Echo again "alexa show my the front door" Bingo!! video displayed in about 3 sec's (i'd seen comments it was taking over 11 seconds) but that's not what I experienced.Next sound quality, tried a few songs... Wow I was not expecting much in the audio quality, but it was actually really good and as a side benefit, it displays the words of the song as it's sang, pretty cool. Basically all the other alexa functions work as with any device, but now you also get video feedback. Ask about the weather, get your info, plus it displays the temp, clouds, sun, whatever... Very happy with purchase and highly recommended!!

★★☆☆☆ I really do enjoy this device and am impressed at the abilities of Alexa. That said, until they add the option to disable the “Try Alexa” suggestions on the bottom of the home screen I can’t recommend it and will not be buying addition units.Looking online I am far from the only person driven crazy by this so I hope Amazon listens to the feedback and makes this possible in a future update.EDIT: The current top review claims that I (and everyone else complaining about this) am wrong and this can be disabled. While this person is right in the fact you can customize a lot of the display, the “try” suggestions at the bottom are not one of them. For the record I contacted Amazon support before posting my review to confirm this. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong.

★☆☆☆☆ I had the echo 5 and I can't stand the "try Alexa" phrases at the bottom. From all the reviews I read on the 5 I wasn't the only one. I hope Amazon realized that people didn't like this. I will be returning this. At least make it a option.