Google Nest mini
Buy now £33, Ao.com
Dimensions: D 98mm x H 42mm
Weight: 177-183g
Colours: Chalk, charcoal, coral, sky
DesignThe Nest mini is a case of a good thing coming in a small package. It’s a pebble-shaped beauty, fitting nicely in the palm of your hand and coming in a range of lovely pastel shades – our favourite is the coral. Bright but subtle, it’s the sort of speaker that would look great in a light and airy kitchen next to the toaster, or sat neatly on your distressed-wood bedside table. If you don’t have the home out of Notting Hill that we just described, it’ll still fit seamlessly pretty much anywhere.
There’s not much that’s changed from the original home mini. In fact, it’s almost identical on the outside, apart from a hole on the bottom for wall hanging. It would be quite difficult to make big changes to the Nest mini without turning it into something new, and the design works well, so no complaints from us. The coloured fabric top is a nice touch, and actually made from recycled plastic bottles, so Google gets a small tick on the sustainability chart. Controls are intuitive: LEDs light up when they sense your hand nearby, pointing you to new (!) side lights to control volume, and four central dots that play and pause music.
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There still isn’t a 3.5mm jack, which seems an oversight, especially considering its direct Amazonian rival, the Echo dot, offers one, and would mean Google users could add the brand’s class-leading smarts to a much higher quality sound system. Unfortunately, the Nest mini also doesn’t have a battery, which feels slightly odd for a speaker of this size and a bit of a shame for something so eminently portable, but for the price, you can’t have everything.
Sound input and outputWhen it comes to the inside of the Nest mini, we begin to see marked improvements. It offers Google’s now-device-wide wake word technology, meaning that accidental virtual assistant interaction is a thing of the past, and helps allay fears of a spy in your own home. The microphones are very handy, picking up voice commands from across a noisy kitchen: this is helped by the inclusion of a third microphone adding some more pick up power.
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Sound output is impressive for such a teeny speaker, and a big improvement on the Nest mini’s predecessor. Bass has been ramped up a few notches, and sound in general feels fuller and more powerful, reaching our ears across any room. It’s by no means a speaker to replace a proper sound set-up, and the Echo dot arguably pips it when it comes to the sound stakes, but there’s not much to complain about – it certainly does the business when giving you the answer to literally almost any question you could throw at it. This is also improved, thanks to a quicker processing chip meaning less pausing when having a full-on discussion with your AI helper.