GL1234 Home Hub with Voice-Activated Assistant - 7" Smart Touchscreen (Chalk White)

We're in love with this thing. Just had a recent break up with it because my wifi went down. I felt the depression set in but my internet provider had us workout our difference and now we're back to gather and working things out. I hope this relationship last longer this time.

Love google products

I love this little home hub. Easy to navigate, easily connects to Google and YouTube. Remembers favorite music, too.

Item sent to my son as a gift. He's very happy with this produst.

Very clear picture, easy to use and not difficult to set up

Overall does what i need it to do.

I've been interested in comparing the Google Home with Echo Alexa (we have 3 Echo 2s). This unit works with Android and iOS devices. My Samsung phone refused to make the bluetooth connection in order to set up the unit so I had to use the iPad to do that. Even that failed to go smoothly kept waiting for the connection until I went back to another iPad page to initiate the connection from the other side.It has a nice 7" LCD screen and a switch to turn the microphone off - important for anyone worried about privacy.So far, it is a little better for some things than Alexa, but poorer with dealing with some requests. What I especially enjoy is that whatever you ask is immediately printed on the top of the screen so you can see if your message was properly translated. Sometimes you can see it correct itself. Sound quality is noticeably better than the Echo Dot v 2 -especially the bass response.It can also display recipes on the screen and go step by step, but cannot access web pages in general, so it is limited to recipes from youtube.Sadly, each unit has it's own business unit domain (Amazon vs Google books etc.) limitations. So for example Google Home cannot read sample pages of Kindle books on Amazon, only from the Google Book/Audio book pages, and vice versa for Alexa, which is a large disappointment for me.I don't have an equivalent Alexa device with an LCD display, so I cannot make that comparison, but unless you really want a visual display, I would go with the much cheaper Echo or Google audio only devices. Since I devour Kindle books from Amazon, and Alexa can read the text (convert text to speech), or recite the audio versions (read by actors) and I have music on my Amazon account, I find the Alexa Echo unit to be a better device for my money, especially when Echo is on sale for twenty five bucks.___________________________________________________________________After several weeks of usage I have decided that I like the Google unit more than the Echo unit, primarily because it rarely misunderstands when I ask to listen to my favorite radio stations, and the sound quality is better. I have been surprised that the display is in fact very useful because it allows a customizable clock, keeps showing the radio station information when listening to the radio, and shows an entire week of weather forecasts even when asked just for today's weather.As some NPR stations have noted, these "Smart Speakers" are really excellent radios, which can stream shows that you may have missed and now you can listen to them at your convenience.

I just wasted over an hour trying to get Google support to fix several of the things they advertise the Hub is supposed to do. No help. The picture display doesn't show more than 5 pictures, you cannot cast from your cell to the hub, the hub will not create shopping lists. The Google minis will create individual shopping lists, not the home hub. So, I paid $85 for an alarm clock. One of my dumber investments.I have to think the CNET (and other) reviewers never test the product they are reviewing, they just read the Google advertising.I suggest Google spend their money on making the things work they say the Hub does, rather than launching upgrades.