(NEW-Open Box) Amazon Echo Show 8 by Alexa (3rd Gen) (2023)

This Amazon Echo Show 8 is a good upgrade from the last model, with a brighter screen (with thick bezels) and a louder speaker. It looks great and fits nicely on a kitchen counter. Audio is crisp and clear, even if lacking a bit of bass. The experience with using Alexa on this speaker is less than ideal. Anything beyond checking the weather gave me trouble - sometimes because the microphones could not pick up my requests; other times because the device misheard my request and gave me information I didn't ask for. I don't normally have that problem with my other Alexa enabled devices. The whole interface of this device is slow and is barely an improvement from last generation, unfortunately. The screen, while bright, is often very slow to respond. The worst part of the screen is the prevalence of advertisements on the home page. There is no setting to turn them off, and they became so pervasive that it felt like I had an electronic billboard in my kitchen 24/7. That was disappointing, and there seems to be no way to pay for an upgrade to have an ad-free Alexa experience on this device. If you're looking for a simple speaker to play music on one speaker in the kitchen and to be able to check the time and the weather at a quick moment's notice, you will certainly be able to do that with this device. I did not enjoy using this device for anything other than those uses.