Below is the regular reference set on this blog for what Amazon's Echo is said to do, plus beta-run customers' discussions of that, and an early news-site review when Amazon had generally not been sending out review copies of the device, while they gathered info on what the more or less paying beta-testing customers wanted from it. Amazon's been adding features daily, as reported in the forum threads.
Amazon Echo - $99 for Prime
Echo-tests video + discussions 1, 2
ZDNet review + What's inside?
[Added 1/15/15]
Explained in video by fast-talkers
The taller guy talks so fast that I had to turn Youtube's Closed Captions ON. Alexa understood him better than I did.
Note: If you decide to go ahead and buy it after having gotten a notice or 'invite' (if you had signed up for a notice), it'll say $199, but after going through the Cart process, they apply the PRIME member discount of $100, for a total of $99 before tax.
Another household Amazon account under your Prime acct gets the $99 Prime price also.
Note 2: Availability is 4-6 months.
More on this later, but the discussions linked to will help.
