The Echo Spot is the only Amazon device with a tiny, round screen - and that's both the best and worst thing about using it

Here's the Spot on my bedside table. It just seems like a fancy digital clock on the surface.

It looks incredibly nice, though! In fact, I think it's the best-looking Amazon Echo device you can buy. The shape is ergonomic, the materials feel high-quality, and it's about the size of a softball: not too big, not too small.

There's a camera above the screen, and you can use it to make video calls — just say, "Alexa, video call Jane," and it will call Jane. Even the software design on the Spot is modern and clean, as evidenced by the calling interface.

Video calling is fun and feels a little futuristic, thanks to the round screen. It's rare to see any video displayed that way, which makes the Spot feel refreshingly modern.

But, the round screen is where the device also fails. Text isn't designed to fit in a round frame, so it looks pretty amateurish when displayed on the Echo Spot. Luckily, it's a touchscreen, so you can manually scroll down to read the full paragraph.

Lists aren't optimized for the Spot's display either, so by the third item, everything starts to get cut off.

Here's a moment from my morning news briefing. A video briefing is one of the advantages of the Spot — it's like having a tiny TV next to your bed — but the size is also a shortcoming of the device. Here, you can barely make out the White House. What's the point?

But the Echo Spot somewhat redeemed itself in the end. At first, I thought it was incredibly pointless to watch a music video on the Spot. How would I even be able to see Beyoncé on this thing? Plus, the square Vevo app — remember, no YouTube videos on Amazon devices — looks terrible.

But then I enabled full-screen mode, and here was Beyoncé in all her glory, albeit miniaturized. Sure, the full width of the video gets cut off on the round screen, but feeling like I was on a video call with Bey was worth it.

The Echo Spot costs $130 and is available to buy right now on Amazon.