90 ANDROID ADVISOR • ISSUE 68
Instead, ‘tolerable’ is the word that comes to mind
when describing the Echo Mini’s sound quality, which
is at least an upgrade over plain-old ‘bad’.
You can pair either of Google’s small smart
speakers with a more powerful Bluetooth speaker,
but Amazon offers both that option and a 3.5mm
analogue output on the Echo Dot, so you can connect
it to wired speakers. And like Amazon, Google lets you
create a stereo pair using two Nest Minis, but Amazon
one-ups its rival once again by offering the option
of adding a wireless subwoofer to most of its smart
speakers – including stereo pairs. Google does have
a cool new ‘stream transfer’ feature that lets you ask
the Nest Mini to move any tunes that it’s playing to
another Home, Nest, or Chromecast-enabled speaker.
We also like that the Nest Mini is compatible with
most of the major music streaming services, including
Spotify, and it’ll show up in the Spotify desktop and
mobile apps as a Spotify Connect device, so you can
use Spotify’s own app with the speaker.
Besides (modestly) improving the Nest Mini’s
sound quality, Google also added a feature that
boosts the speakers sound when you’re listening
to the news or a podcast while, for example, the
dishwasher is running, or if a similar rush of ambient
noise happens to rear its head. I sat the Nest Mini
next to a tower fan and cranked its fan speed while
NPR was playing on the Nest Mini, and indeed, the
speaker bumped up the volume a tad, although the
boost wasn’t all that dramatic.
Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the
Nest Mini’s intercom and voice-calling abilities. Just
