Not surprising - first thing to know is that my Echo died in the first 24 hours of use. I tell everyone that Thor bored her to death.
Alexa is dumb as hell. If you are used to talking to the Google AI on your phone you are going to be sadly disappointed. She can answer strangely specific questions like "Where is Marfa?" and "What is Taylor Swift's net worth?" with ease, but she seems to not understand a bunch of really basic queries. This is a really new device and Amazon doesn't have the software driving it that Google has, so it's not a big disappointment, but if you want to impress your friends you need to be very careful what you ask her. You can have her say almost anything with "Alexa - Simon says..."
Amazon music is also really hard to use - you need to move music to your 'playlist' even though it's free with prime. So if you ask for "Play Katy Perry" you'll be treated to a 15 second sample of Juicy J ruining "Dark Horse" without messing with your Amazon account to 'add' the songs. If I ask Google play to play something it, well - just plays it.
Most hilariously - Amazon made Alexa always speak in a G-rated lexicon. You can't make her say anything worse than Yosemite Sam might, and she won't parrot anything she doesn't understand either, so creative Urban Dictionary attempts won't work either. I can see what she's coded this way for first release. But it's still funny. She'll beep out anything that sounds beyond the pale. Disappointing to the kids. ^^
Although I sound all negative - this is a really nice device. Sound is amazing, and the voice recognition and pick up is amazing. I could talk to her anywhere downstairs within earshot and she would answer. The sound quality is probably Bose level, even though it's a single speaker. This thing just needs the software written for it. I asked for access to the restricted SDK for it - but Amazon probably Googled me and choose to not answer so far. Price of being an extremely minor net celebrity. :-P
Amazon is mailing me a replacement - more when it appears at the house.
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