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Google Home Mini and Max hands-on: New form factors, same intelligence
The Google Home has been around for just about a year now, and it seems Google is ready to make the family little bit bigger.
At today’s Made by Google event, the company unveiled two new Google Home speakers, the Google Home Mini and the Google Home Max. Both are powered by Google Assistant and share a similar style to the earlier model of the Google Home, with a cloth-covered body made to help it fit more naturally in your home.
The Google Home Mini costs $49, and essentially looks like a squished down version of the bottom half of a Google Home. It can do everything the regular model can do, like control your home, play music, and cast content to your Chromecast.
Unfortunately, with a Google Home of this size, you’re obviously not going to get the same level of sound quality. The drivers are much smaller and it lacks in bass compared to the regular model, but for the price Google is asking, it’s still pretty sweet. Think of it as a competitor to the Amazon Echo Dot.
You can pre-order a Google Home Mini today, and it will appear in stores starting October 19th.
On the high end lies the Google Home Max. This speaker is much larger than the original Google Home, and as such can output a much higher level of sound. Google says it is 20 times louder than Google Home, and that’s saying something. It packs much larger 4.5-inch subwoofers and custom 0.7-inch tweeters to deliver an exceptional sound experience.
The Google Home Max has another trick up it’s sleeve, though. Google has included what they are calling a “Smart Sound” system into this device, which can supposedly optimize the sound of the speaker depending on where it is sitting. It uses the sound coming from the device combined with the ambient noise in the room to continuously tune the speaker to your space, so it should sound great wherever you put it.
The Google Home Max comes with a detachable magnetic stand that allows you to orient it in both landscape and portrait modes, so you’ll be able to place it just about anywhere in your house. It supports Chromecast, Bluetooth, and auxiliary input so you’re able to use just about any source for audio. Get your vinyl collection ready.
Google Home Max will be available for $399 in December, but you can pre-order one starting November 13th. If you do, you’ll get 12 months of YouTube Music for free.
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Make sure to check out our hands-on of both the Google Home Mini and Max in the video above, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.