FacebookPortal Mini - Smart Video Calling 8” Touch Screen Display with Alexa - Black

We bought the portal mini, as it was the cheapest of the options. We wanted the portal for the wide angle lens and for the stories feature. Our primary use was to help the kids connect to their grandparents who live far away.This Device has been a social life saver during Covid 19.We live far away from our families so having an easy way for our kids to visit with their grand parents, aunts, uncles and cousins has been great for them. my 3 and 5 year old have learned how to use it and call all their favs. When you set up the portal (using a face book account) you can set the people you want to be callable on the device. This prevents your kids from calling your old college room mate or other random people that you are "friends" with on facebook. It really is easy for kids to use.The smart tracking camera is cool, not perfect. Callers without the portal have no control over the focus feature of the portal camera. So they get random zooming in whenever the camera senses motion.I hope they continue the wide angle lens on the newer portals. I think this is the best feature as it really allows you to feel like you have a guest over for dinner as apposed to the narrow view of a phone camera.The wide angle lens is a necessity for kids and a stationary device.It has no battery at all so it must be plugged in. This is a pro and a con. For kids, it keeps them from dragging it all over the house and abandoning their relatives to stare at the ceiling in a random room. But it also means if you want to take a conversation from the living room into a story time in a bed room, you have to hang up and call back after it bootes up again.The stories feature is cool, but if you have the portal and the person on the other end of the call does not, they don't see the words to the story. This is a selling point to buy one for the grand parents. But since it's not as portable as a cell phone, grand parents may prefer to use their phone.The "stand" that comes built in is not great. It sits at a slight up angle. Which is fine most of the time. This stand is also part oft he the power cord, so you can't take it off. You can set it flat on the edge of the device, but it could get bumped and fall forward.It is also a great digital picture frame! it automatically shows pictures from your facebook account ( the one you used to log onto the device). You can limit the pictures to different albums etc. The pictures show up as a screen saver after a few minutes of inactivity.It does work with Alexa with some nice features compared to the amazon echo we have in the house. It will add things your shopping list and show you the list at the same time. It will also tell and show the weather. I'm sure these features work the same or better on amazon screen devices.

It's very nice. We can now video call relatives abroad with ease. The connection is great and the sound or volume is very good and clear. No regret so far it's worth the price.

Love it

With 1 on 1 calling it is great. Conference calling with 2 or more the duplexing takes a hug hit. Sometimes the camera goes out and many times the audio is muffled or delayed. Needs more work on conferencing but a great tool for 1 on 1 calls. Family loves it and can keep in touch with the grandkids.

Very nice communication option. I got tired of getting motion sickness while talking to my grandchildren (running around with a phone in their hands and seeing everything but then) so I purchased one for me and one for them (love Amazon’s multi-shipping as well).Well worth the investment. I also find myself using when not talking to the girls (Pandora, making lists, leaving notes for my husband). Very handy.One weird thing, I purchased them for $112.70. A few days later (less than a week), they went on sale for $79.99. Big difference. The odd thing? Amazon wouldn’t just refund the difference. I had to send the first units back and order new ones at the sale price. Seems like a waste of time and money to me.

Excellent for video “hanging out” with friends and family. Nice hands free way to let me to move around the room quite a bit and have it follow me. Should have bought tv version though because large one still is pretty small to see the other party I’d you’re walking around in front of it cooking dinner or something. They see you great. But struggle to see them in detail too far from the screen

Gifted this to my parents who are not tech savvy in the slightest. We set it up prior to sending it to them and created a dummy account on Facebook so I could call them and load pictures onto it. All they had to do was connect it to the WiFi and plug it in! They love the manual camera feature (can shut it off by a manual toggle switch) so they don’t feel like I’m just gonna pop on and see what they’re up to without warning (which I assured them the portal doesn’t allow that anyway lol). Really great resolution and picture. We’re very pleased to have been able to connect for the holiday as we had to be apart.

Meta has discontinued the feature that allows for voice commands. Amazon's site for the product still list this important feature, but in fact the product no longer supports voice commands. This was a key feature that my elderly parents have benefitted from greatly with past portals purchased, but now the feature is gone.