Smart Displays / Google
Google Nest Hub Max
Seven-year-old hardware, the best speakers in the category, and no successor in sight.
Overall score 6.7/10
Pros
- + The best-sounding smart display here — a real 75 mm woofer and two tweeters
- + Hardware camera/mic switch cuts power rather than just toggling software
- + No advertising on the ambient screen at all
- + Face Match personalises the screen without you touching it, and it doubles as a Nest camera
Cons
- − A 2019 product still priced at $229 in 2026, with several colourways already sold out
- − No physical lens cover — the privacy control is a switch, not a shutter
- − Camera history and familiar-face alerts need a Google Home Premium subscription
- − Video calling is Google Meet only; Zoom and Duo are both gone
- − Google has stripped most on-device apps from Nest displays and has not shipped a successor
Google Nest Hub Max review: what the specs say
Seven-year-old hardware, the best speakers in the category, and no successor in sight. At $229, Google's 2019 model sits in the middle of the range — the smart Displays we compare run from $79.99 to $399.99. It scores 6.7/10 overall, calculated from published specifications across 8 categories rather than from a subjective impression.
Its strongest showing is Ad Freedom at 9.0/10 — how much of the screen you paid for the vendor sells back to you, and whether you can turn it off. The weakest is Value at 4.5/10, which is the trade-off to weigh before buying: if that is the specification you care about most, one of the alternatives below will serve you better.
Worth knowing before you buy: a 2019 product still priced at $229 in 2026, with several colourways already sold out; and no physical lens cover — the privacy control is a switch, not a shutter. Every specification on this page comes from Google's own documentation or a verified retail listing — where a figure is not published, the table says so rather than estimating it.
Specifications and price last verified . Report an error
Full Specifications
| Voice Assistant | Gemini for Home (has replaced Google Assistant on this device); basic voice control needs no subscription |
| Screen Size | 10 in |
| Resolution | 1280 x 800 |
| Touchscreen | Yes |
| Camera | 6.5 MP, 127-degree field of view, Face Match and auto-framing; also works as a Nest indoor camera |
| Physical Camera Shutter | No sliding shutter — a hardware switch on the back electrically disconnects the camera and mics and turns the status LED green |
| Speakers | Two 18 mm 10 W tweeters plus one 75 mm 30 W woofer (stereo) |
| Smart Home Hub Radios | Matter controller AND Thread border router — one of only three Google devices Google lists as a border router |
| Subscriptions Required | Voice control is free, but the camera-history and familiar-face features the product is sold on need Google Home Premium ($10/mo Standard or $20/mo Advanced) |
| Home-Screen Ads | No sponsored cards — the ambient screen is Google Photos, weather and your own content |
| Video Calling | Google Meet only; Duo was retired into Meet in October 2025 and Zoom support was dropped in 2023 |
| Wall Mountable | No |
| Connectivity | Dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth, Thread border router, Matter |
| Material | Fabric-wrapped speaker base with plastic display housing |
| Warranty | 12 months |
Compare Google Nest Hub Max With
Cheaper Alternative
Amazon Echo Show 11 (2025) — $219.99
Premium Alternative
Google Pixel Tablet (128 GB, dock sold separately) — $399.00