Price and release date
Although the WK7 smart speaker is going to arrive in April, there’s a longer wait for the WK9 with an LG representative at CES telling us that it will go on sale ‘autumn 2018‘. Google has confirmed at Google I/O 2018 that the first smart displays will go on sale in July.
Design and build
We thought the Echo Show was pretty ugly when it was first announced – that opinion hasn’t changed since – and we have a similar feeling about the WK9 ThinQ Smart Display. It’s perhaps a little more attractive but not by much. It’s a chunky little number and doesn’t have the sleek lines of a modern device we’d expect to launch in 2018. For example, the WK7 smart speaker looks far more desirable but the pair don’t share much in the way of style. The WK9 looks like some sort of kitchen-top TV set from decades ago, only without a telescopic aerial. Maybe it’s hard to make a small screen adorned by speakers look like anything else but we feel they could have been housed in a nicer enclosure. There’s little else to say about the design here apart from the fact there’s a microphone toggle button on the top with touch sensitive volume buttons either side. A nice touch is a physical camera cover for privacy.
Specs and features
Like the WK7, LG has been fairly coy about the specs for the WK9 so for now we’re talking fairly broadly. The main feature is the screen and it’s 8in in size so it’s like having a medium sized tablet inside something the size of a radio. It’s perfectly bright and colourful for the application and importantly gives the Google Assistant the ability to show you things rather than just speak them. As such, the WK9 can do all sorts of things for you like show you the weather forecast, your route to work, your calendar, the view from another device like a Nest camera and search results for all kinds of queries like where to eat out. There’s plenty more you can do as well including playing music, but you’ll want to use the screen so you can play YouTube videos or video call someone using the camera. The former could be especially handy when cooking in the kitchen to watch tutorials. The WK9 also has Chromecast built-in and we’re keen to test out the limitations of the Google Assistant in a device like this, but the demo shown at CES makes it seems very handy. Overall, we feel the digital assistant is better than Alexa so this should outpace the Echo Show and Echo Spot. We’re also keen to see how the device performs when it comes to audio – something impossible to really decipher on a busy show flow in Vegas. Like the WK7, LG uses Meridian Audio for the audio here. Tech Advisor’s Reviews Editor, Chris has been reviewing all kinds of tech for over 10 years and specialises in audio. He also covers a range of topics including home entertainment, phones, laptops, tablets and more.
