According to AI (so definitely a fact probably) the Amazon Echo was the first widely sold commercial smart speaker when it was launched in 2014.

In fact, we humans had a monogamous relationship with Alexa for a whole two years before any of the other major tech brands caught up and brought out their own virtual-assistant-in-a-speaker. Two years is an eternity in tech. Quite a head-start.

Since then, the Echo range (and Alexa) has continued to evolve - bigger speakers, smaller speakers, attaching touch screens to speakers, even screens that swivel creepily to face you wherever you are in the room, screens that look like photo frames with speakers built in - even screens that have speakers built in but not very good ones...

Nobody has tried more variations of a smart speaker than Amazon has with the Echo.

Twelve years on, they might just about have it sorted.

From the front, the Echo Show 11 is all screen. But don't despair; that 1080p, high-density display is firmly fixed in place in front of a completely redesigned speaker containing stereo forward-facing drivers and a custom woofer that brings significant bass punch to the equation - an all-round, full frequency sonic party that has been missing from most Echo Shows of late.

I'll be reviewing the new Echo Studio in a few days time but for now, I probably haven't heard a speaker as convincingly room-filling as 2019's original Echo Studio until now. The Show 11 pumps out hefty bass while eliminating any noticeable distortion or vibration, even when playing at full volume.

Let's come back to the sound of things and what you can and can't stream shortly but first, the new 11-inch screen. It's bright, it's clear and you can see it from practically any angle (so no need for creepy rotation). The touch-screen responses are far superior to any previous Show - some of these earlier models reacted so slowly, I often pressed the wrong button a second time while I was waiting to get a reaction from the first. That's no longer an issue here. 

Maybe it's the screen? Maybe it's the processor. The AZ3 Pro is Amazon's latest and greatest and if that's what's speeding everything up, I tip my hat to the engineers. According to Amazon's own blogs, the AZ3 Pro accentuates all of the Echo Show 11's abilities, including filtering out background noise in order to detect whichever wake-word you've set, as you'll see me demonstrate in the video below.

As wireless IoT protocols like Matter, Thread and Zigbee become evermore universal, so does Alexa's ability to control more and more devices with a simple voice command or a few taps on a customised widget on the Echo Show 11's screen. Again, responses to these commands seem significantly accelerated - especially with requests for music from subscribed services or to show live feeds from CC security cameras.

I've been especially impressed by the improved interoperability with Apple Music, one of my preferred options. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be the same flexibility to add video streaming apps - if anything, this functionality seems to have taken a step backwards from a couple of years ago when you could literally pair an Amazon Fire TV remote with your Echo Show and use it like a smart TV. I guess people just weren't into using their Echo Shows as a smart TV?

I'm not sure if Omnisense is new to the Echo Show, or I just wasn't aware of it until now. Regardless, this is what allows the Show 11 to register when you've entered the room via the 13MP camera, the microphone array, ultrasound, accelerometer and even Wi-Fi radar and Wi-Fi CSI - don't worry; I don't know what those last two things are either. What's important is, the Echo Show 11 comes to life whenever you're around and goes back to sleep when you aren't.

Without me getting too carried away fiddling with home-screen settings etc., this iteration of the Show does a much better job of showing me what I want, when I want. Mostly, I just want it to display the pics I've uploaded to my Amazon Photos account but when I'm playing music, it's quite nice to see the album art and useful info like, I don't know, maybe the name of the song that's playing? Unlike some Shows before it, this one gets it.

Which all bodes well for the arrival of Alexa+.

Which hasn't arrived in New Zealand yet, by the way. Some North American users currently have early access to the new, subscription-only version of Alexa which purports to be more intuitive, has a better memory of previous interactions and is more integrated with tools like your email and calendar. No word yet on when we'll get to keep up with the Joneses.

And that's the impression I have using the Echo Show 11; it does pretty much everything I ask it to, more accurately, more intuitively and above all, faster than ever before - which makes me feel like there's definitely more to come.

Whatever that is, and more importantly, whether it's worth paying for, is something I'm keen to find out in the coming months.