Google, Amazon, Facebook, and the like want to convince you that you need a smart display. But as we've explored in previous reviews, most smart displays are luxury versions of their screen-less counterparts. Everything that you can do with an Amazon Echo or a Google Home can be done with a comparable smart display, but the latter can show you visual information and (in some cases) videos. If you don't care much for visual information in such a device, why spring for a smart display? These devices are hard sells, particularly because most cost $150 or more.

Amazon Echo Show 5 Last week, Amazon announced the Last week, Amazon announced the Echo Show 5 , a new 5-inch, rectangular version of the Echo Show. Thanks to its shape and $89 price tag, it's even more similar to Lenovo's Smart Clock than the $129 Echo Spot. Since the Echo Show 5 is only available for preorder right now, we couldn't test it out to compare to the Smart Clock for this review. However, all Echo devices are hosts for Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, so its capabilities are nearly identical to that of the Echo Spot. We've included its specs in the table below, so you can get a better idea of how the Echo Show 5 compares to Lenovo's Smart Clock in terms of hardware.

That's not the case with Lenovo's new Smart Clock. It's the first Google-Assistant answer to Amazon's Echo Spot, serving as a tiny smart screen that shows the time by default and can be used to set alarms and do everything a regular Google Home device does. It could be an ideal device for someone who wants a virtual assistant at home and could use some visual information in their daily routine. But most importantly, it's great for those who don't want to spend a lot—Lenovo's Smart Clock costs $79, which is even more affordable than the $129 Echo Spot.

But a few big differences distinguish Lenovo's Smart Clock from Amazon's Echo Spot, and they will be make-or-break for some users. We used both devices for about a week simultaneously to see if a tiny smart display is the way to go and how the two compare to each other.

Design

Lenovo ditched the wood accents it used in its full-sized Smart Display and opted for a soft-touch fabric in the Smart Clock. It's understandable in a device that will likely live on a bedroom nightstand, and it ended up being a quaint addition to mine. It takes up about as much space as my cheap alarm clock does, and I could easily read the time on its 4-inch 480×800 touchscreen.

The embedded ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the screen's brightness so you won't be blinded by a harsh square of light in the middle of the night. There are 10 clock faces to choose from, too, so you have some control over the digital aesthetics of your alarm clock. You can even enable "dark mode" to give most clock faces a grayscale effect.

Specs compared: Lenovo Smart Clock vs the competition Device Lenovo Smart Clock Amazon Echo Spot Amazon Echo Show 5 Price $79 $129 $89 Processor MediaTek 8167S ARM Cortex-A53 MediaTek MT 8163 Display 4-inch 480×800 IPS touchscreen 2.5-inch 480×480 touchscreen 5.5-inch 960×480 touchscreen Camera None 1 x Front-facing 1 x Front-facing Speakers 1 x 1.5-inch 3W speaker, 2x passive radiators 1 x 1.4-inch speaker 1 x 4W speaker Buttons/ports 1 x mic mute, 1 x volume up/down, 1 x USB 2.0 port 1 x mic/camera disable, 1 x volume up/down, 3.5mm audio output 1 x mic disable, 1 x camera shutter, 1 x volume up/down, 3.5mm audio output Connectivity 802.11ac WLAN, Bluetooth 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4 and 5 GHz) Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5 GHz) Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Dimensions 4.483×3.14×3.11 inches 4.1×3.8×3.6 inches 5.8×3.4×2.9 inches Weigh .72 pounds .92 pounds .91 pounds

Aside from the display, the Smart Clock has two top buttons for adjusting volume, a power port, a microphone disable switch, and a USB 2.0 port on its body. The latter makes charging smartphones and accessories easy because you can plug charging cables into it instead of an AC outlet or a USB port in a less convenient place next to your bed.

Mic-kill switches have become commonplace on devices like these because users increasingly care about their privacy in the wake of AI devices becoming ubiquitous. The Smart Clock doesn't have a camera at all, unlike the Echo Spot, so there's no need for a camera shutter or kill switch.

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That may be the biggest selling point of the Smart Clock. The decision to leave the camera out of the original Google Home Hub (now called Nest Hub) was confusing because Lenovo's Smart Display included one for Duo video chatting. However, a device as small as the Smart Clock won't be the best video chatting tool, so a camera's usefulness is minimal.

Video calling with the Echo Spot will likely come in handy more if you have the device on your office desk. That way, it acts as a hands-free camera with which you can answer video calls using your voice. Placing video calls with the Spot isn't any different from doing so with the Echo Show, either—just ask the device to call a specific contact and, if the contact has an Echo Show or Spot or can be reached via the Alexa app on their smartphone, your video feed will start by default. Saying "Alexa, turn video off" will disable your camera and make the call voice-only.

You can also use Alexa's Drop-In feature to "call" other Echo devices in your home—and if one of those devices happens to be an Echo Show, you can video chat with your family in the living room just by using the Echo Spot in your bedroom. Like the Smart Clock, the Echo Spot includes a mic and camera-kill button that sits between the volume up and down buttons.

While a camera is a convenient feature to have on the Echo Spot, it makes more sense to include on larger smart screens like the Echo Show or the Nest Hub. If you're resigning yourself to video chatting on a small screen, you might as well just use your smartphone—and with Alexa's mobile app, you can video chat with or Drop-In on any contacts just like you can on any standalone Echo device.

Google Assistant vs. Alexa: Tiny screen edition

While hardware differences are important, the great divide between the Lenovo Smart Clock and the Echo Spot comes from their virtual assistants—Google Assistant and Alexa, respectively. We've dived deep into both platforms in previous reviews, so we're not going to rehash everything here. However, we paid particular attention to the features that one would expect a smart clock to excel at, namely waking you up, showing and telling personal information, and connecting to smart home systems.

Alarms and routines

Despite their geometric differences, the Smart Clock and the Echo Spot do similar things with their displays, with telling time being the focus for both. On the Smart Clock, swiping up from the bottom reveals quick-setting icons for changing brightness, volume, and other aspects of the on-screen UI like the clock face. Swiping down from the bottom reveals even more quick settings including icons to edit your alarms, set a nap timer, play music, and control smart lights (if you have any paired through the Google Home app).

When an alarm is active on the Smart Clock, a tiny icon appears at the top-right corner of the clock face. When that alarm's time approaches, a larger oval appears underneath the current time that states how much longer until the alarm goes off. This is particularly useful in the mornings when you glance at your alarm clock wondering how many more minutes of precious sleep you have before you need to wake up. You can quickly disable the alarm by tapping on that oval, so if you're like me and frequently wake up five minutes before your alarm goes off, you can spare your partner the rude awakening.