The Google Home is fun, functional, and should only get better with time.

It can be personalized to you; giving you info on your commute; weather; and calendar; Works with Chromecast; Answers questions and follow-ups fairly well; Lots of choices for music

Limited smart home control

Alexa is still the queen of voice assistants. Google Home is learning fast, and it does some things better than Alexa does. If you have a Google Play Music account and multiple Google accounts around your household, Google Home will give you a smoother multi-user experience.

Attractive design; Removable color bases; Well-rounded sound; Multi-room audio

Still fewer skills than Amazon's Alexa; Doesn't work as a standard Bluetooth speaker

Fresh off the launch of the Google Pixel , the new Google Hardware division is back with its second product: Google Home, a voice command appliance and Google Cast-enabled speaker. There is basically no interface at all to this product-it's all voice commands, all the time.

The "OK Google" hotword performance is absolutely incredible; It always answers, and all your other hotword capable devices hive mind together to intelligently pick a single device to respond to you, A great media product; For audio there's a loud, crisp speaker, and a great mesh audio capability.

Most of my favorite voice commands from the Google app don't work-no reminders; messages; or creating calendar events; Do you want to know exactly what voice commands are supported for each service and function? Nobody knows!

I've been watching the Home since it's launch. I'm an early adopter and love android and Google products. But with the feedback since launch, I'm glad I didn't plonk my money down for it.

Quickly access all of Google and the net with your voice

Needs an sound equalizer BAD! Too much bass

Google has made the smart speaker race interesting with Google Home. It can do many of the same basic things as Amazon's Echo can, yet it costs less and has more visual appeal. The Echo delivers better sound, and it connects to far more smart devices, but you can expect Home's add-ons to increase...

Integrates with your Google tools; Controls Google Cast-enabled devices; Booming bass

Limited add-ons at this point; Lacks balanced sound; especially on vocals

It was only a matter of time before Google came out with something to compete with the Amazon Echo: After all, Google too has deep experience with both voice commands and search. Indeed, one of the things we like best about the new Google Home hub is how it responds to conversational inquiries --...

Tasteful design; Access to Google's massive knowledge graph; Google Assistant is conversational and context aware; Chromecast integration has the potential to be a killer feature

Speaker quality is only so-so for music; Limited third-party app support compared to Amazon; A handful of expected features aren't available at launch

The Home is a squat little device that's intended to sit in your house or apartment, providing an access point to all of Google's services whenever you need them, even if your hands are full or you're not in front of a phone or computer.

Attractive design; Good sound quality; Smart voice responses

Fiddly touch controls; Limited features; Not the future; yet

Google Home is fun device that excels at answering questions from the Google knowledge graph and integrating with Google services and products. Is it better than Amazon's Echo? Ultimately that'll be down to personal preferences and the services you need.

The smart home arena is getting even more crowded, with Apple's barrel-shaped HomePod speaker on the horizon. Once the Siri-powered device lands in February, expect a three-horse race between Google Home, the Amazon Echo and the HomePod, all competing for shelf space in your living room.

The Google Assistant has been bundled into the browser, added into Android, and squeezed into Android Wear: now, it's getting a sleek object d'art for the smart home. Google Home is the search giant's take on the smart speaker space, a direct challenge to everyone's current favorite virtual PA,...