Everything you need to know about Amazon Tap, the smart portable speaker Amazon just announced

On Thursday, Amazon unveiled the latest additions to its family of voice-activated devices: The Echo Dot and Amazon Tap. 

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The Amazon Tap is essentially a smaller, portable, and less expensive version of the Echo, the company's highly-regarded connected speaker. But there are actually some big differences between the two devices. 

Here's everything you need to know about Amazon Tap.

Amazon Tap
Amazon

 

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The Amazon Tap is a portable Bluetooth speaker that you can take anywhere, whereas the the Echo plugs into a wall and is designed to stay in one place.

amazon tap bike 800
Amazon

Amazon Tap is also quite a bit smaller then the original Echo.

Amazon Device Family March 2016
From left to right: Amazon Tap, Fire TV, Echo, and Echo Dot. Amazon
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Amazon Tap has a built-in rechargeable battery the company says will last for nine hours. It comes with its own charging cradle.

Amazon Tap Charging
Amazon

Unlike the Echo, it's not always listening for the wake word "Alexa." You have to press (or "tap," hence the name) a button on the device in order to command it to do something, like hail an Uber, play a song from Spotify, or set a timer.

Amazon Tap Front
Amazon
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It has dual stereo speakers with 360º omni-directional audio.

Amazon Tap X-Ray
Amazon

And it can do pretty much everything that the original Echo can do, including play music from various services, read the news, order a pizza, and more.

Amazon Tap Services
Amazon
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Unlike its older and bigger sibling, though, Amazon Tap has physical buttons that you use to control volume, play, pause, and more.

amazon tap tech specs
A view from above. Amazon

Unlike the first version of the Echo, which only has a mute botton, the 

Amazon Tap needs to be connected to a WiFi network or hotspot to use Alexa's various features, but you can use it to play music by just connecting it to a device via Bluetooth.

Amazon Tap Beach
Amazon
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You can order different colored cases for your Amazon Tap, called Slings, for $19.99 each.

Amazon Tap Family
Amazon

In the promotional video for it, people are using it to hang the Echo from their bag.

Amazon Tap costs $129.99. You can pre-order it right now, but it won't start shipping until March 31.

Amazon Tap Charging
Amazon
Amazon Echo
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