You can show photos on the new Echo Show 8, but at a cost

Amazon recently held its hardware event where it showed off some neat devices. Among the devices announced, we got a new Echo Show device. Called the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition, this device will act as your picture frame. However, this will actually come at a bit of a cost, according to The Verge.

Amazon announced some interesting news such as new AI capabilities for Amazon Alexa. The voice assistant will use generative AI in its responses, so you’ll be able to use it like you were using ChatGPT. This means that you’ll be able to generate responses like stories, poems, etc. This functionality will be coming to Alexa at a later date. Amazon will start testing it on existing Echo Show devices.

Here’s the Echo Show Photos Edition

If you’re looking at this device expecting some wild improvement to the hardware over the standard Echo Show, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s basically the same as the Echo Show 8 (3rd gen). So, it gives you a well-featured and intuitive smart display experience.

What makes this different is the fact that you can use display photos on your screen as the primary content. You’ll essentially be using your smart display as a digital photo frame. That’s great if you want to have the best of both worlds.

However, this privilege is not without its cost. The regular Echo Show 8 costs $149.99, but the photo edition costs you $159.99. That’s just a $10 difference, and it’ll most likely be negligible when you’re making the purchase. Still, it just seems odd that the company is charging you to display photos on a smart display.

The expenses don’t stop there. After buying the device, you have to activate the subscription. When you buy the device, you’ll activate a six-month free trial of PhotosPlus. This is the subscription service that grants you the ability to display the photos as the main content on your Echo Show. After the six-month trial, you’ll be charged $1.99/month.

The subscription will also grant you 25GB of photo and video storage for your device. If you’re a Prime member, you get unlimited photos and 5GB of video storage.

If you really want a smart display with a digital picture frame added on, you can pick up this device when it launches in the fall.