This week, Google expanded the Google Home family at its fall hardware event. Announcing two new Home speakers that accent the already available Google Home. There’s the Google Home Mini which is a smaller and cheaper smart speaker, and then the Home Max, which is said to be about 20X as powerful as the Google Home, making it a good choice for audiophiles. But with the lineup ranging from $49 to $399, which one is the best choice for you?
Google Home Mini
The Google Home Mini is going to be the most popular of the three, simply due to its price tag. It comes in at $49, and is available in three colors. The Google Home Mini, despite being smaller, does still output some great sound. Google is using 40mm drivers inside the Home Mini, so it’s going to offer some great sound without getting distorted as you raise the volume. It also is pretty small, so you can sit it on a table in your living room or even at your desk without it taking up much room.
Google developed the Home Mini as a way to get more people into the Google Assistant world. It is also its answer to the Echo Dot from Amazon, which has been a top seller for Amazon. The Google Home Mini does everything that the regular Google Home does, but it allows you to have the Google Assistant in all of your rooms, instead of needing to carry your phone with you everywhere. It’s going to be a good choice for a lot of people that want to use Google Assistant for smart home control.
Buy the Google Home MiniGoogle Home
Google Home is the OG, so to speak, even though it’s only a year old. Google didn’t release a new Google Home this year, but it didn’t need too. Since the original is still a great smart speaker to pick up – and most of the changes can be done via software updates to the Google Home app. The Google Home has a slightly better speaker than the Google Home Mini, and some may prefer the design over the Google Home Mini. It actually looks a bit like an air freshener, which isn’t really a bad thing, as users are able to go ahead and hide this on a bookshelf in their home somewhere.
The Google Home already has the Google Assistant inside, and well, it’s going to work exactly the same as the Google Assistant inside the Google Home Mini (and the Home Max). However, the Google Home is going to be a good one to pick up and put in the living room, or wherever you spend the majority of your time, with the Google Home Mini being placed in other rooms throughout your home. With the Google Home, however, you can actually swap out the bases and change up the look a bit – which is something you can’t do with the Home Mini or Home Max. So if that’s worth something to you, then the Google Home is going to be a good choice to pick up.
Buy the Google HomeGoogle Home Max
Before we jump into the Google Home Max, it isn’t going to be available until December but you can join the waitlist on the Google Store – which will have Google email you once its available. The Google Home Max is quite a bit more expensive than the Google Home, coming in at $399. So as you can expect, it’s a far better speaker. Google claims that it is around 20X more powerful than the Google Home, which is going to make it great for a large room, or even a large office. Aside from more power, Google has also included Smart Sound on the Google Home Max. Which will change up the soundstage based on your surroundings. This is done with machine learning, so that the music coming out of the Home Max will always sound as good as possible.
Now as far as Google Assistant goes, it’ll work exactly the same as on the other Google Home models. So you can play music from around 35 different music streaming services as well as stream over Bluetooth. Google Assistant also has the ability to tell you what song is listening, and control your smart home products. So with the Google Home Max, you can ask Google Assistant to turn off the lights in the living room, or the bedroom, etc. Those that are audiophiles, the Google Home Max is going to be the choice for you, since it does have better subwoofers and tweeters inside.
Join Google Home Max WaitlistWrap Up
The differences of the three Google Home products, essentially fall into three categories. There’s price, design, and audio quality. Now those that love their music and always looking for something that’s louder, the Google Home Max is going to be the best choice. Those that don’t care to much about music, it’ll be down to the Google Home and Home Mini. And for the majority of those, it’ll be the Google Home Mini, due to the price tag. All three have the exact same features with Google Assistant, so if you are looking to pick one up to use Google Assistant, you really can’t go wrong with any of them.