Google began 2018 with a bang, with its now ubiquitous Assistant entirely stealing the show at CES 2018. Back in January, Google announced that its A.I.-powered helper would be appearing in a number of smart displays, offering multiple competitors to the Amazon Echo Show. And now, at Mobile World Congress, the company has granted yet another hardware maker access to its software. Archos has debuted a new line of Google Assistant-powered smart displays, named Hello.
As you may have already come to expect with these smart displays, the Archos Hello can be used to control your home, play music, or receive a weather report. But of course, thanks to the presence of a screen, you don’t have to rely solely on your auditory senses. That means that you can actually see a Google Maps route of the best way to get from your home to your office, or perhaps read a recipe as you’re making dinner in the kitchen.
From a design standpoint, the Hello is quite long and slender, and actually looks a bit like a smartphone that you’ve propped up on a stand. The minimalist design features wood accents and either an 8.4-inch FHD or 7-inch HD display, depending on which model you select. Regardless, you’ll also have a “high fidelity” speaker that is about half the screen’s size at the bottom of the device.
Curiously enough, the Archos Hello runs Android Oreo, but isn’t exactly the most powerful Android device. As Slashgear reports, it runs on an unnamed quad core processor, and features 2 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of storage. That means that while the Hello may look like your smartphone, chances are your smartphone is actually considerably more powerful.
Still, the smart display will likely be useful, as you can stream music, make video calls with the 5-megapixel front camera, or just talk to Assistant. And if you’d rather have a bigger screen, you can cast the Hello onto a bigger display.
The Hello is slated to go on sale this summer, and the price tag for the 7-inch model currently stands at around $160, while the larger 8.4-inch version will go for about $222.
