Starting out with a few caveats: 1) no smart speaker / voice assistant is perfect, 2) many people have their preferred ecosystem, and 3) when that ecosystem fails, the grass is greener on the other side.

With that being said, in my own opinion, Alexa currently beats Google hands down when controlling smart devices (though Google reigns for integrating its services like search, calendar, photos, etc).

I had grown less and less pleased with my Google Hubs over the years, and long story short, I was eventually gifted an Echo Show. I was so impressed with its ability to handle my various smart devices when Google was failing to do so correctly, that I eventually decided to purchase more Echo devices, including this Echo Dot. This device does not disappoint.

First off, the sound quality. Though this is a small device, it packs a punch. Bass is decent and song audio via Spotify is clear. Audiophiles may gripe about sound quality that isn't 100% perfect from a small smart speaker, but for the average user, streaming sound quality from this device is good enough, if not great. It's easy enough to pair into whole-house audio with other Echo speakers, but on its own it still gets the job done decently. The only drawback is the 5th gen Echo Dot lacks an aux port that the 4th gen had, but hey, if we're comparing this to a Google Nest Mini, Google doesn't use aux ports at all.

Voice recognition when speaking to Alexa is decent - again, no smart assistant is perfect, and errors in communication do happen, but they appear to be relatively few on this device all things considered. My biggest complaint would be the "By the way, would you like me to blah blah blah..." additions Alexa occasionally tacks onto responses, with no real way to disable them in the app.

When listening to voice commands and responding, the Dot will glow blue at the base. When your Amazon account and device settings are set up correctly, this light turns yellow to let you know you have a package delivery notification. Despite not subscribing to Prime and ordering infrequently from Amazon, I still find this quite useful.

Overall I think this is a decent device, and outpaces Google in many aspects. It goes on sale pretty often so I wouldn't recommend paying full price for this unless you absolutely need to, but you wouldn't have buyers remorse if you did.

I bought this as a present for a couple in their 70s and 80s. Both recipients were skeptical and appeared disappointed when they opened the gift. Fast forward a month - they love it! Also, if you have Prime you don't need to pay for the music subscription. I gave them some help setting up as the app needs downloading onto a mobile phone (for some reason you can't save to a desktop). Anyway, app downloaded and echo dot plugged in and you're ready to go as Alexa will talk you through the settings. She really is a clever little device. Sound quality is better than my (older) echo dot. Lastly, I choose the midnight blue colour as something different. It's a subtle dark blue and looks great.

Honestly, never realized how much I actually needed this until I got the first one.
It’s a little multitasker - it can do everything very well.
The AI is smarter than Siri (and I wish it was the other way around), it responds well and I have learned the distance and angle to get best results.
It actually sounds really good - though it is much better in a smaller room.
Bit of a pain to initially set up - not difficult, just a bit time consuming but once running, it can do everything. Almost.
I have become so spoilt that even opening an app and clicking a button is just “too much work”. I love the voice commands.
Now we have one in the kid room, kitchen, shop and living room.

Probably think your not going to get a good sound from a speaker just a few inches diameter. Wrong! For its size the sound is amazing. This Dot Gen5 gives a lot of sound, but it is also clear, and the tone is good too. You get bass and tone which is very acceptable. A good feature on the speaker is raised + and - buttons for loudness and the mute and in it buttons for the microphone. There are good features if you are fumbling in the middle of the night, for example, if like me you wear glasses during the day but take them off at night. As you probably aware this unit has Alexa built in, more than a mind full of knowledge and very quick to respond. There is software to load on your phone to help set its many features up, and its nice to wake up to a greeting and a summary of the news, or weather, or simply to play some music of your choice. This version of the Dot Gen5 does not come with a visual scrolling clock, thus making it a bit cheaper than the version that does, but it is excellent value for money and the time is only a question away.