Alexa is usually hidden in a spherical or cylindrical housing called an echo.

These speakers are the home of Amazon's voice assistant, from where she listens, answers or plays music if you wish.

With the new Echo Show 15, Alexa opens our eyes again.

Even in the fourth generation, it not only talks, but shows its results on a lavish 15.6-inch screen, which reacts to tapping and swiping gestures just like a smartphone or tablet.

The large display is a great asset.

Ultimately, you have a small television with a depth of just four centimeters in front of you.

Amazon supplies a practical wall bracket.

With a stand for 30 euros, the device is stable in or on the shelf.

Marco Dettweiler

Editor in Business.

  • Follow I follow

Alexa has risen again as a result.

We had buried Echo, but also the smart boxes from Apple and Google, because their voice assistants don't always hear how they should.

There is no other way of correction than saying the words again and again slowly, loudly and clearly to the assistant.

Often unsuccessful.

That was terribly annoying.

Now we stand silently and happily in front of Echo Show 15, search for favorite songs with our index finger, select videos on Youtube or Amazon Prime with a tap of our finger, click through TV libraries or surf the Internet with Microsoft's Bing browser by clicking, Swipe and sometimes enter letters in a search field.

This is how we know and like it from our smartphones and tablets.

Incidentally, these devices also hear and speak because they contain either the voice assistant Siri (Apple) or the Google Assistant (Android).

Then you could just as well hang a tablet on the wall?

Basically yes.

So Amazon has to offer more with Echo Show.

Alexa therefore has exclusive properties such as the so-called skills, of which there are now thousands.

These are answers or actions to a specific question.

Because they are so specific, Amazon lists examples in weekly emails, such as this week: "Alexa, how much water is there on earth?", "Alexa, where is the nearest pharmacy?", "Alexa, set a timer to 5 minutes”, or “Alexa, give me the weather report for the next 7 days”.

The assistants from Apple and Google can answer and execute all these questions and commands on the smartphone and tablet just as well if you choose a different form of address.

It will be more difficult for the competition with "Alexa, read 'QualityLand' from Marc-Uwe Kling".

Because Alexa reads the first lines of the book straight away – provided it was bought in Audible, Amazon's audio book store.

With Echo Show 15, Amazon also wants to bind users to their own devices such as video doorbells and other smart things that can be controlled quickly and easily with spoken instructions.

Chic control center

Anyone who gets involved in the Amazon cosmos, manages their notes, to-do lists and calendar entries there, has smart lamps, sockets and doorbells, uses Prime Video and Audible, gets a chic control center for their Amazon kingdom for 250 euros.

Since the Echo Show 15 needs to hang or stand near an outlet, it might make sense to populate multiple rooms with it.

But then you are approaching a tablet in terms of price that is more versatile because it has a battery, is even easier to use and has all the apps you need.

Only Alexa would be speechless and silent forever.