The Amazon Tap is its mother’s child i.e. the resemblance to the slightly taller and portlier Echo is uncanny. It only comes in one colour i.e. black and the silver Amazon logo is its only distinctive marking that sits flush above the base of the unit.
Design:
At 9.25 inches tall and 3.27 inches wide the Echo was husky cylinder, the Tap measures in at around 6.24/2.6 inches or 158.5/66mm and it weighs in at just over 1 pound.
From the Echo the biggest difference is that however the Tap is almost entirely coated in the mesh fabric. Inside the unit there are two, 1.5-inch drivers, a battery that is capable of going nine hours on a charge and dual passive raditors.
On the front there is also the Tap button that are emblazoned with a microphone that the full size Echo lacks, along the top of the canister there is a quintet of inset media controls and on the lower back side there is power and Bluetooth sync buttons. Also there are new 3.5mm auxiliary audio jack and the micro-USB port that are used to charge the Tap.
If we ignore the front button for a minute, the Tap is arguably well-designed. On the Echo’s minimalist façade, the controls on the top are a welcome improvements and a dedicated button for the Bluetooth means that your family and friends can use the Tap without going through the rigmarole of downloading the Amazon Echo companion app.
The most ground-breaking feature of the Tap where the design stumbles is that accessing Alexa it can only be done by physically walking over to the speaker and by pushing a button. So, at that point, it is faster to pull out your smartphone and ask Siri anything that comes on your mind.
But, by choosing to willingly ignore the Tap’s ability to act as the personal assistant means that $130 speaker you will just purchase will not be better than the several dozen cheap and some decent-sounding Bluetooth speakers in the market. It’s just not matter that how you cut it by using Alexa on the Amazon Tap just is not as convenient.
Performance
Where Tap excels beyond and above its predecessor, however, is in its audio performance. While I felt that music coming from the Echo was always muddled and it had dulled mids and highs on the Tap performed extraordinarily well given its size.
The Tap can draw on two sources for audio, either directly from the mobile device through Bluetooth or if it is connected to a Wi-Fi network, from streaming the services like Pandora, Tuneln, Spotify, iHeartRadio and of course Amazon Prime Music.
To connect the device to the services that you want to use is done through the still-rather clunky Amazon Alexa companion app. The good news is that once you are connected then you will really don’t need to spend too much more time with it.
Final Verdict:
The Amazon Tap is full of contradictions. Here, the main attraction is still Alexa, but using her has become little more hassle than it is worth that is both due to the time that it takes to walk over and to press the speaker button and the limitations of the Alexa’s capabilities.
Sure, from music requests, she is better than ever at understanding everything to local restaurant information from Yelp. Yet, Alexa is just not as feature rich as Google or Siri.
One hurdle for the Echo is that it is not dialed into mobile contacts and email in the same way that Cortana or Siri are, it means that sending quick message to my friends or calling from the Tap is not possible yet.
So, if the Amazon could figure out some way to keep Alexa always on then even if that was just when speaker was plugged into the wall then the Tap would be a far better product than Echo.
Pros:
- Decent battery life
- Steadily improving AI
- Better sound quality
- Totable
Cons:
- Requisite Amazon Prime
- Alexa’s still learning
- Inconvenient push-to-talk
Amazon Tap looks
Amazon Tap image
Amazon Tap design
Amazon Tap button
