Amazon’s Echo is half off right now

If you missed the chance to pick up an Echo during Amazon’s recent Prime Day sales event, the retailer has discounted the smart speaker to its lowest price ever. This weekend, you can buy the Echo for $50, or half off its usual $100 price. We gave Amazon’s spherical smart speaker a score of 89 when it came out in 2020. Since then, it has remained one of our favorites in the category.

The Echo sounds great for its small size, outperforming similarly priced smart speakers like the Nest Audio and HomePod mini. It’s also versatile thanks to Amazon’s decision to include both Bluetooth connectivity and a 3.5mm audio jack. What’s more, the 50 percent discount makes it affordable to buy two speakers for a stereo pair and get even better sound.

If you want a smart display, Amazon has also discounted the Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8. The two devices are currently priced at $35 and $70, respectively. For the former, that represents a nearly 60 percent discount, while the latter is a more modest 46 percent off at the moment. In 2021, Engadget awarded the Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8 scores of 85 and 87, praising the devices for their minimalist designs, excellent displays and solid sound quality. In the case of both devices, our review found that competing options from the likes of Google offered more intuitive user interfaces. That may be still true, but it’s less of a potential deal breaker when the Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8 are discounted by as much as they are currently.

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