Amazon Keeps Making the Echo Show Bigger. The Tablet in Your Drawer Has a Better Screen.
The new Echo Show 21 is a 21-inch display Amazon wants you to mount in your kitchen for $399. The Echo Show 15 is the same idea at 15.6 inches for $299. They are nice. They are also $300 to $400 of dedicated hardware that does what an iPad does, except the iPad has a better screen, more apps, no rotating ads, and no microphone listening to your kitchen.
I’ve had an old iPad on my kitchen wall for two years. Calendar, weather, photo slideshow, the kids’ chore chart. I started with it because I had one sitting in a drawer and I didn’t want to spend $300. Two years later I’ve spent some time looking at the 
Echo Show line honestly, and I still wouldn’t switch. Here’s the breakdown by model, the parts I’d actually give Amazon credit for, and the three costs the reviews tend to skip.
The 2026 Echo Show Lineup, in Plain English
Amazon’s smart-display range got crowded fast. Five sizes are on shelves right now. Here’s what each one is for and what it costs in the US.
- Echo Show 5 ($89.99). 5.5-inch tabletop, the nightstand-clock model. Targeting the bedroom or a small desk.
- Echo Show 8 ($179.99). 8-inch tabletop. The “kitchen counter” default. Refreshed in late 2025, designed around the new Alexa+ features.
- Echo Show 11 ($219.99). Released November 2025. Same family as the new Show 8, just larger at 11 inches. Slots between the counter model and the wall mounts.
- Echo Show 15 ($299). 15.6-inch wall-mountable. Sized like a small piece of wall art.
- Echo Show 21 ($399). 21-inch wall-mountable. The biggest of the line, pitched as a family command center for the kitchen or hallway.
The 15 and 21 ship with a wall mount and an Alexa Voice Remote in the box. The optional Premium Adjustable Stand if you want it on a countertop instead is another $99. For the 8 and 11, the basic stand is included but the adjustable one is $34.99 extra.
So an Echo Show 21 set up the way most families want it – wall-mounted, fully running – is $399 out the door. An Echo Show 15 is $299. Both numbers before the part of the bill nobody mentions.
The Three Hidden Costs Nobody Mentions in the Reviews
Here’s what doesn’t make the spec sheet.
Ads on the home screen
The default Echo Show home screen rotates through “things you might like” promotions. Prime Video shows, Amazon products, recipes that happen to use Amazon Fresh ingredients. You can turn some of them off in the settings. You can’t turn off all of them, and Amazon adds new categories periodically. “Echo Show alternative without ads” is one of the actual search queries that brought you here, which tells you how widely felt the issue is.
The tablet has no equivalent. The screen shows whatever app you opened it to.
The new Alexa+ subscription
This is the 2026 story. The AI features Amazon’s marketing centers on – the conversational Alexa, the “set up my morning routine,” the smart scheduling – those run on Alexa+. Alexa+ is a paid subscription. It’s free for Prime members and $19.99/month for everyone else. Prime is $14.99/month or $139/year on its own.
If you’re a Prime household already, nothing changes for you here. If you’re not, the Echo Show you just bought either runs the old Alexa (the dumb one you remember complaining about) or runs the new one with a $240/year subscription attached. Most “Echo Show alternative” reviews I’ve read don’t mention this at all. It changes the math.
The “one update from brick” risk
This one is more recent. Echo Show owners keep surfacing the same story across jailbreak and home-automation forums: an Amazon update bricks the device on the boot screen, support can’t (or won’t) help, and the path back is reflashing it with LineageOS or a similar third-party build.
The Echo Show is a device Amazon controls. The firmware is theirs. When they end-of-life a model or push a bad update, you find out the same time everyone else does. An old iPad still boots even if Apple stopped releasing iOS updates for it. The hardware is yours.
What an Old Tablet Already Does Better
Here’s the part where I sound like I have a stake in this. I don’t. I just have an iPad on the wall that’s been working since 2024 and I keep noticing how many of the Echo Show’s selling points are things my iPad already does, better.
A bigger app library
The Echo Show runs Amazon’s own app environment plus a small set of partners. The tablet runs every app in the App Store or Play Store. Your kid’s school portal, your specific gym’s class schedule, the niche local-weather app that’s been right for ten years, the family chore app you’ve used since the first kid was born – all of those are on the tablet. Most are not on the Echo Show.
A better screen for the money
The Echo Show 21 is a 21-inch 1080p display. That’s about 105 pixels per inch. A 2018-era 9.7-inch iPad has 264 pixels per inch. A Galaxy Tab A8 has 216. Your old tablet looks sharper, by a lot, than the wall-mounted Echo Show. The Echo Show’s screen is fine from across the room. It does not look great up close.
No always-on microphone
The Echo Show is listening for “Alexa” every second it’s plugged in. That’s its job. For a lot of households that’s fine. For a lot of others it’s the dealbreaker – aging parents, kids’ rooms, anywhere a private conversation might happen. The tablet’s mic is off unless you open an app that uses it.
This is the one my mum brought up when I was helping her pick a calendar display for her hallway. “I don’t want a machine listening to me all the time.” Fair. The iPad doesn’t.
You decide what’s on it
The Echo Show home screen rotates through Amazon’s choice of widgets. You can rearrange them. You can’t make it just show your calendar full-screen all day. The tablet does whatever you open. Want to use 
Google Calendar in a month view, all the time, no rotation, no ads? Open Google Calendar and lock the screen on. Done.
$0
If the tablet is in the drawer, this part writes itself. You already paid for it. The cost of repurposing it is a mount, a charging cable, and twenty minutes.
What the Echo Show Actually Does Better
I keep saying I want this to be a fair comparison, so here are the three places the Echo Show genuinely wins. If your situation hits any of these, the math changes.
Hands-free voice control
The Echo Show is built around “Alexa, do the thing.” Hands covered in flour, hands holding a baby, walking past the kitchen on the way somewhere. The tablet can do this with Siri or Google Assistant, but neither is as polished as Alexa for kitchen-style commands. For a household where the smart display is genuinely a voice device first and a screen second, the Echo Show is the better tool.
Drop-in video calls
If your extended family is on Echo Show too, the “drop-in” feature, where Grandma’s Echo Show just turns on and shows your face, is genuinely nice. It’s lower-friction than a FaceTime invite. You can replicate it with a tablet and a video calling app, but it’s not as seamless. If half your family already has Echo Shows, buying one more is the path of least resistance.
Plug-and-play setup
You unbox the Echo Show, plug it in, scan a QR code with your phone, and it’s running. Total time, about three minutes. The tablet takes more like fifteen, plus picking which apps you want. Both are achievable for anyone, but if “I just want it to work and I don’t want to think about it” is high on your list, the Echo Show wins on this one.
Setup Comparison: Plug-and-Play vs Fifteen Minutes With More Control
The honest version of the setup question is that the Echo Show saves you the upfront time and the tablet gives you the upfront control. Three minutes vs fifteen on day one. After that, both run.
The tablet’s fifteen minutes look like this: hang a tablet mount, run a charging cable behind the cabinet, open the calendar app you want, log in, set the screen to never sleep, lock it to that app. If you want a full dashboard look with weather and photos alongside the calendar, 
DAKboard has a free browser tier that does it in another five minutes. The full walkthrough is in our iPad family calendar setup guide.
The Echo Show’s three minutes look like this: plug in, sign into Amazon, accept the default home screen. Done. After that, every customization is a setting menu, and the menu is the Echo Show’s choice of what’s customizable.
It’s a trade. Less time, less control. More time, more control.
When the Echo Show Is Actually the Right Call
For most households I’d point at the tablet. There are exceptions, and they matter.
You don’t have an old tablet. Buying a new entry-level iPad is $349 plus the mount and the app setup time. An Echo Show 8 is $179.99 and it’s running in three minutes. If the drawer is empty, the price comparison is different.
Voice control is non-negotiable. Wet kitchen hands, mobility limitations, sight limitations, any situation where touching the screen is the wrong primary interface. Alexa is better at this than Siri or Google Assistant for kitchen-context commands. Echo Show wins.
The display is for a non-technical user. My mum scenario. Setting up a mounted tablet for someone who won’t troubleshoot a frozen kiosk app is asking for support calls. An Echo Show needs less ongoing tending. (My mum, in the end, picked a Skylight Calendar over an Echo Show because she didn’t want a microphone. The principle still holds: a non-technical user wants something that runs itself.)
Your family is already on Echo. If three relatives have Echo Shows and the drop-in calling is genuinely how the family stays in touch, buying into the same ecosystem makes sense. The compatibility is the value.
For everyone else, the tablet wins.
How to Set Up the Tablet
Quick version, in case you’re sold and want to start tonight. The full version is in our old tablet smart display guide.
- Find the tablet. iOS 12 and Android 8 are the floors. Almost anything from 2017 onward works.
- Buy a wall mount or stand. The tablet mount roundup covers the ones that actually hold a tablet at the angles you want.
- Pick the apps. The calendar app comparison covers what runs on old tablets, and the weather app roundup does the same for weather. For a full-screen dashboard look across calendar and weather and photos, DAKboard‘s free tier is a fast win.
- Lock the screen on. Settings, Display, Auto-Lock, Never. (On iPad, plug in first – the option is hidden when the device is on battery.)
- Mount it where everyone walks past.
That’s it. The first time you do it, allow fifteen minutes. The second time, maybe five.
The Math, Three Years Out
Numbers are clarifying. Here’s what each path costs across three years, all-in, for the most common kitchen setup.
| Path | Hardware | Subscription (3 yr) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old tablet you already own + Google Calendar + wall mount | ~$25 mount | $0 | ~$25 |
| Old tablet + DAKboard Essential ($6/mo) | ~$25 mount | $216 | ~$241 |
| Echo Show 8, no Alexa+, no Prime | $179.99 | $0 | ~$180 |
| Echo Show 8 + Alexa+ standalone ($19.99/mo) | $179.99 | $720 | ~$900 |
| Echo Show 15 + Alexa+ standalone | $299 | $720 | ~$1,019 |
| Echo Show 21 + Alexa+ standalone | $399 | $720 | ~$1,119 |
| Echo Show 21, Prime household (Alexa+ included) | $399 | $0 marginal | ~$399 |
That’s a roughly $375 gap between “use the tablet you own and a $25 mount” and “buy an Echo Show 21 even with Prime covering the subscription.” It’s an $1,100 gap against the non-Prime, full-feature Echo Show 21 setup. If you’re already a Prime household and you don’t want any of what the tablet does better – bigger app library, sharper screen, no listening mic, no ads, full control – the gap shrinks but doesn’t close.
If you’re not a Prime household, it’s not close.
If you’re looking at the Echo Show against more premium calendar displays specifically, the Hearth Display breakdown covers the same math against the $699 wall calendar, and the smart display comparison covers the broader category including Skylight and Cozyla. The full list of other ways to give an old tablet a job lives in our old tablet ideas index.
For most of the families I talk to, none of those four “Echo Show wins” situations apply. The drawer has a tablet in it. The kitchen has a wall. The math is the math.
Pull the tablet out of the drawer. Try it for a month. If voice control really is the dealbreaker, an Echo Show 8 will still be on Amazon, on sale, for less than the box of cereal aisle.
