Google Nest Hub (2nd gen) vs. Amazon Echo Show 8: Which midsized smart display is best?

Google Assistant and Alexa face off on their respective midsized smart displays.

With the release of the second-generation Google Nest Hub, Google once again raises the bar for what a smart display can do. The new Nest Hub offers premium features like gesture control and sleep tracking. The Amazon Echo Show 8, on the other hand, might be getting a little long in the tooth.

Amazon's 8-inch Echo Show, introduced in late 2019 as the first direct competitor to Google's 7-inch Nest Hub, represented a good-enough alternative for smart home enthusiasts partial to Alexa over Google Assistant. As the Nest Hub leapfrogs even further ahead of Alexa with its latest update, however, the question may become whether the Echo Show 8 is still good enough to keep the Alexa faithful from straying.

When we reviewed the previous-gen Nest Hub, we lauded its convenient smart home controls, Ambient EQ adaptive screen, cooking help and voice assistance, noting it was already well ahead of Amazon's only smart display at the time -- the 10-inch Echo Show -- if, admittedly, a tad smaller.

The Echo Show 8, however, does have a camera, which opens up the potential of video chatting that Nest Hubs (other than the Nest Hub Max) simply don't have.

Last time we put the Show 8 screen-to-screen against the Nest Hub, it's fair to say it was a close call. Does Google's revamped device outpace Amazon's with its next-level features and updates? Let's take a look.