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My Favourite Tech for Reading Books - Kindle vs iPad vs Books vs Audiobooks - YouTube
Channel: Ali Abdaal
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hey friends welcome back to the channel
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now reading is one of the things that i
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love and that i'm sure you love as well
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but life is really hard for us these
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days here
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in 2021 because we've got way too many
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methods of reading books we've got
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kindle
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ipad physical books god forbid we've got
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audiobooks and so in this video i'm
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going to try and answer a question
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that's been plaguing philosophers since
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the dawn of time
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what is the best way to read books so
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for each of these different ways of
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reading we're going to be comparing them
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against one another and we're going to
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talk about the cost and affordability
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we're going to talk about the
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convenience
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the aesthetics of reading the ease of
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note-taking and the durability of the
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reading method of choice
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and for each one i'm going to share my
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personal thoughts on which of these four
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methods i use in different circumstances
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in my life
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let's get into it alright method number
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one for reading is the one that's been
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around since the prehistoric era and
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that is the method of physical books now
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in terms of price physical books are
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pretty reasonable you can get a book for
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between five dollars and twenty dollars
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and
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if you go to a secondhand bookstore or a
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public library you can get them for
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cheap or virtually free convenience wise
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though we're gonna give books a one out
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of five the problem with books compared
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to devices is that you have to carry a
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physical book around
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and so if you're the sort of person who
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carries a book around with them and
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that's totally cool
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but every time i've tried to carry books
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with me it ends up getting like smushed
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in my bag and i end up never really
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taking it up but the place that physical
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books really shine is in the aesthetics
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of the reading like
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a lot of the anti-kindle people say that
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oh there's something something nice
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about reading a physical book and i
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would agree i think
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in terms of reading aesthetics physical
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books are going to get a five-star
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rating from me because with kindle ipad
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audio books you just don't get that nice
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feeling
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feeling of the book and you know when
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you're reading a book you feel you know
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what i'm going to sit down and read a
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book
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i don't really think that when it comes
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to sitting down with a kindle or sitting
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down with the ipad that's probably the
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single best thing about the physical
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books um in terms of their ease of
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note-taking we're gonna give this a
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three out of five star
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it is possible to take notes from books
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while you're reading but usually you
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have to have a pencil on you taking
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notes in the margin or like i do you can
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use these physical book tag things to
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kind of create bookmarks
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and then theoretically at some point i'm
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gonna go over my bookmarks for this and
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actually type them up
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so ease of note-taking we're going to
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give a three-star rating and then in
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terms of durability we're going to give
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these a three out of five because
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you can toss books onto the floor and
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it's like totally fine
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but for example this is a book i had in
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my backpack and it just got squished
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amongst everything else amongst all the
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tekken devices and things so this is not
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very good
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and also if you pour water on books
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they don't do particularly well i
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remember i used to spill water on my
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harry potter books when i used to sit
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and read them in the toilet
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and they would just end up dying so
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durability gets a three out of five now
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overall
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physical books are still kind of nice i
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do have quite a few physical books
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around the house
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i don't read them very often but i will
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admit it is nicer
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like if i'm winding down for the evening
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it's it feels nicer to sit down and read
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a physical book than just to sit down
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and read the kindle so that would be
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probably the best thing about them
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now we're moving into the 21st century
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and we have here the kindle i have here
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the kindle oasis the kindle oasis is
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probably a little bit overkill you could
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do with the kindle paperwhite and out of
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everything i've ever bought i would say
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the kindle is one of my top three most
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life-changing pieces of tech because
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the thing with a kindle is once you have
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a kindle it does cost a bit of money to
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buy like 69 to 99 pounds on amazon
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whatever
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but once you have a kindle suddenly the
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friction to buying and
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getting and reading new books just gets
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reduced basically down to zero it like
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i've read so many more books
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over the last 10 years since i've used
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the kindle than i would have done if i
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had to
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wait for physical books to arrive any
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time someone recommends me a book i can
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literally hop onto amazon and just buy
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it immediately on the kindle store and
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start reading it there and then
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that is the sort of thing you just don't
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get from a physical book let's talk
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about cost now so a kindle
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i think is a pretty high return on
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investment purchase 69 pounds for the
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cheapest kindle
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that's not too bad i'd basically
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recommend a kindle for everyone our
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kindle books
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are not that much cheaper than
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traditional physical books
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these books are probably the same price
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on kindle as they are in physical
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version
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but the nice thing about kindle is that
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often amazon does run sales on them so
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you can often get books for 99p
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or less than a dollar or even a few
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cents and that's pretty good for even
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for ebooks you don't really get that
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with physical books
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so overall i think if you have a kindle
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you would save more money
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in the long run than if you bought
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physical books but i think
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the real benefit of getting a kindle is
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in terms of the convenience and we're
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gonna give this a five star rating
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because it's just so convenient you
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carry kindle around everywhere well i
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don't personally i have my kindle on my
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bedside and so whenever i wanna read at
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night time i just
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get into bed and read on my kindle
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that's ridiculously convenient if i'm
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going traveling i always take the kindle
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with me because i know that if i'm on a
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beach
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or if i'm chilling in a coffee shop or
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if i'm in bed i can always just read
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whatever i want on the kindle the
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aesthetics of reading though are not
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that great like it's quite a functional
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utilitarian device
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it doesn't feel good to be reading a
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book on the kindle which is why i'm only
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going to give it a two out of five star
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rating for this but even though the
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aesthetics of the kindle are only two
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out of five the ease of note taking on a
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kindle is great because
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the really great thing about kindle is
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you can highlight anything and if you
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can
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you can highlight anything and then you
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can export your highlights to whatever
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you want so i use a service called read
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wise affiliate link in the video
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description if you want to check it out
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i use a service called read wise which
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automatically collects all of my
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highlights from kindle and insta paper
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for articles and air
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audio for podcasts and it puts them all
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together and then it sends those
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highlights into notion and into rome
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which are the two note taking apps that
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i care about this is absolutely game
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changing um i really wish
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i had highlighted more books when i was
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younger can you read them but not really
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highlight them but now i just highlight
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the hell out of all the books that i
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read
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whenever i come across something that
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resonates with me and i know it's going
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to end up in my note-taking system if i
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need to use it at some point in the
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future so
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for ease of note-taking on a kindle
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we're going to give this a 4 out of 5.
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the reason it's not a five out of five
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is because it's actually quite hard to
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type things like
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it does have a keyboard on it and a
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touch screen but it's like really slow
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and annoying to actually type stuff out
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if i wanted to expand on a highlight so
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mostly because of the highlighting
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we're gonna give this a four out of five
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and finally when it comes to durability
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not particularly durable i've dropped
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lots of kindles i have had them crushed
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in my bag
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they do all right let's give it a three
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out of five um and the kindle oasis is
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waterproof but it's a little bit
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overpriced you probably don't need the
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kindle oasis
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unless you like buy a pool side or a
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beach a lot you don't really care about
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the well i personally don't really care
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about the waterproof nature of it so
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personal thoughts on the kindle kindle
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is my absolute favorite way to read it's
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not as aesthetic as books
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but the convenience and the ease of
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note-taking and highlighting makes it a
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winner in my category and honestly
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basically everyone in the world who can
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afford it i would recommend a kindle
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because i guarantee it will change your
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life but let's say
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you don't want to get a kindle because
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you already have an ipad or a tablet or
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even a phone
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you can always use the kindle app on
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your ipad or on your phone or on your
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tablet
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and the kindle app is pretty solid um
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the kindle app isn't the one you have to
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use you can use
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ibooks as well or apple books or
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whatever it's called and then you can
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buy
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ebooks from amazon or from apple and you
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can read them on your device let's start
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by talking about price now obviously
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you've got the price of the device but
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if you're going to read on your phone
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chances are you've got a phone anyway so
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the price doesn't really factor into it
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and certainly if you if you have an ipad
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you're probably not buying an ipad to
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read books because that's a weird
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use case for an ipad so you probably
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have an ipad anyway if that's what
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you're concerned about
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and then price wise it's exactly the
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same price as kindle books because you
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can just read them on a different device
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instead in terms of convenience we're
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going to give this a 5 out of 5 as well
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like it
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like most of us well we always carry our
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phones around right and
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it's very convenient to be able to read
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a book on your phone in fact i have
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kindle on my home screen on my iphone
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and for example when i was in japan for
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two months and i was taking the train
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back and forth into tokyo city center
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for two hours each day i was reading a
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song of ice and fire the series on my
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phone while standing up in a carriage
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and that's a lot easier to do on a phone
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than it is even on a kindle where you
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have a bigger device
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obviously i wouldn't be taking an ipad
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out and and reading on there so five out
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of five full convenience but in terms of
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reading aesthetics i'm gonna give this a
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one out of five
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it is less nice reading books on the
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iphone and on the ipad then it is
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reading on the kindle
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nice thing about the kindle is that it's
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got this e-ink screen so it doesn't look
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like you're looking at a screen
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but whenever i'm reading on my iphone or
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my ipad or my macbook on the kindle app
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i always feel like i'm looking at a
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screen because i've spent i spent all of
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my life looking at a screen anyway
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it's a bit annoying to have my reading
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experience also be based on looking at a
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bright led screen but the place where
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ipad and iphone and macbook really
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outshine everything else
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is in terms of their ease of note-taking
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now when you're on
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the kindle app on the ipad again you can
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do the highlight thing as well so i
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could just
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select some text and highlight it and
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then that would automatically
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synchronize via read wise into
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rom research for my note taking but the
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even cooler thing is i can tap on it
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and i can add a personal note and if i'm
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adding a personal note
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that saves to read-wise as well but
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obviously it's a lot easier to type
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something out on the ipad or on my phone
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where i have a decent touch screen a
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decent keyboard even on my macbook if
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i'm reading on there i can type things
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out
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that's infinitely easier than trying to
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type on the crappy keyboard that they've
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got on the kindle
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and it's also infinitely easier than
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having to find a piece of paper to take
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notes on
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when reading a physical book so overall
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in terms of use case often what i'll do
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is that i'll read a book either on
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kindle or i listen to the audiobook
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but then if i know that it's the sort of
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book i really want to take extensive
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notes on or i want to write a summary of
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i'll often just open it up on my ipad
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and then in split screen mode i'd be
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i'd be using the magic keyboard and i'd
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be taking notes and summarizing the book
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while flicking through it on the kindle
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app on the ipad that's like a really
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really really good user experience that
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you don't really get with any other
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device
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so i'm going to give this a 5 out of 5
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for note taking and that's my most
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common use case in terms of reading on
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the ipad and finally in terms of
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durability
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this stuff's not particularly durable
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probably can't drop it it's not
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waterproof
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but you know i just shove it in my bag
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at all times and i have the paper-like
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screen protector on me on the ipad
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matte screen protector that makes it
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feel like paper when taking notes link
[553]
in the video description if you want to
[554]
check it out and finally the fourth
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method of reading is in fact
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audiobooks using audible i'm sure there
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are other audiobook services no audible
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are not sponsoring this video but
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audible is by far the most popular one
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it's the one that i've been using for
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years at this point i often say even
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when they're not sponsoring my videos
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i often say that if there was only one
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subscription service that i could ever
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have in my life
[573]
it would be a subscription to audible
[574]
which i think is about 15
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a month and for that you get one free
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audiobook credit each month basically
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price-wise
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most people don't get through more than
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one audiobook a month i get through a
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lot of audiobooks a month so i just
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spend a lot on audiobooks
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if you buy audiobooks individually
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they're like ridiculously expensive it's
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like 25
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on average for an audiobook but if you
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get it through the audible subscription
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it becomes much more reasonably priced
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in terms of convenience listening to
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stuff
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i'm gonna give it a four out of five
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it's not as convenient as just being
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able to whip out your phone because you
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do generally have to put headphones in
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but that's one of the things i love
[605]
about the airpods for example that i can
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just whack them in and immediately open
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up the audible app on my iphone and just
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immediately start listening to whatever
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i want to listen to so this is what i do
[613]
when i'm cycling to my co-working space
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these days
[616]
it's what i do when i'm doing any chores
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around the house it's what i do when i'm
[619]
setting up the cameras
[620]
basically whenever i've got downtime i'm
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always listening to something on audible
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and it just makes it so so so convenient
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to
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listen to a ton of books now in terms of
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the reading aesthetics it's not quite
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the same as the feeling of reading a
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book but like
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all your books have like really are a
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good user experience if you haven't
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tried audiobooks yet i really recommend
[637]
it it's fantastic
[638]
um because they're like often narrated
[640]
either by the author of the book
[641]
themselves or by a professional voice
[643]
actor narrator type person and the
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really cool thing about audiobooks is
[646]
you can listen to them at multiple
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speeds so for example mostly i listen to
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audiobooks at between 1.5 x and 2.5 x
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speed
[653]
and the moment i'm listening to one
[654]
called the millionaire fast lane which
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i'm listening to i think two and a half
[657]
times speed
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that's pretty good it means i can get
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through the book in two and a half times
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the normal
[661]
normal rate and i can do that while
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doing other stuff crucially so
[664]
absolutely incredible for convenience
[666]
and pretty okay for reading aesthetics
[668]
four out of five styles on that front
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the main issue with audiobooks and this
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is why i don't like audiobooks it's like
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it's really really really hard to take
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notes
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while you're listening to an audio book
[675]
like yes on audible you can bookmark
[677]
sections but there's no real way of
[679]
exporting them
[680]
it's just an absolute nightmare to take
[681]
notes from audiobooks so the way that i
[683]
actually do it is
[684]
if i like a book so much on audible i
[687]
will just buy
[688]
it again on kindle and then i'll take
[689]
notes on my ipad using a split screen
[691]
taking notes on drafts or in notion or
[693]
in rome
[694]
with the kindle app open on the side and
[695]
so i'm afraid notetaking from audible
[697]
gets a one out of five in my book
[699]
and finally durability pretty hard to
[701]
assess but like they always live on the
[702]
cloud and we always have phones so
[704]
durability let's call it a five out of
[705]
five why not now before i tell you about
[707]
exactly what my favorite method is and
[709]
how these different methods fit into my
[710]
life
[711]
we're gonna have a quick note from our
[712]
sponsor for this week which is brilliant
[713]
we're very kindly sponsoring this video
[715]
and therefore indirectly funding my
[716]
addiction to books if you haven't heard
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for courses in maths
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science and computer science i
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particularly enjoy the computer science
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series in particular learning python
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which is the world's most popular
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programming language so
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if you've ever thought that you want to
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their basics and intermediate python
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series which is awesome i've also
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i probably can't put it down to me
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taking the brilliant course but
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taking that course really helped me get
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a more foundational understanding of how
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having like 20 of my net worth
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in bitcoin and ethereum sadly not
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subscription
[773]
so overall thoughts about these four
[775]
different methods of note-taking
[777]
if i could only choose one it would be
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the kindle
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and if i could choose two it would be
[782]
kindle plus audible but in fact i
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actually use all four of these in my
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life a different way so
[787]
kindle i always have at my bedside i
[789]
always read in bed on the kindle
[791]
and i like the kindle oasis it's a bit
[792]
overpriced but it does have a more of a
[794]
warm light and i use it on dark mode
[796]
so usually i just lie in bed i get my
[798]
kindle out i read and then when i notice
[800]
myself starting to fall asleep
[801]
i'll just chuck it across the floor on
[803]
the bedside table and then i'll fall
[804]
asleep so this is how i read the bulk of
[806]
the books that i read second most common
[808]
is audible i listen to audible when i'm
[810]
cycling when i'm driving
[811]
basically whenever i have down time and
[813]
then as i said if i need to take notes i
[814]
would just buy the book on kindle
[815]
because it's totally worth it and i will
[817]
take the notes
[818]
i use the ipad generally only when i
[820]
want to take
[821]
copious notes from a book that i've read
[822]
or when i want to summarize it where
[824]
i'll have
[824]
split screen open kindle on one side
[826]
notion or rome or draft on the other
[828]
side i'll be summarizing insights from
[829]
the book on the ipad and posting them on
[831]
my website so you can check that out at
[832]
alibaba.com if you want to see my book
[834]
summaries
[835]
and finally in terms of physical books i
[836]
only really have these around the house
[838]
because they look cool and so i can show
[839]
them off in videos but
[840]
i actually found that if i want to relax
[842]
for the evening and i'm not
[844]
in bed if i if it gets to like 9 pm and
[846]
i think you know what i'm not going to
[847]
play world of warcraft tonight i'm going
[848]
to read a book
[849]
then usually i'll pick up a physical
[850]
book and sit on the couch and just read
[852]
a physical book
[853]
so in a way all these four methods of
[855]
reading fit into my life but if i had to
[857]
choose the absolute best it would be the
[858]
kindle
[859]
followed by audible followed by physical
[861]
books followed by the ipad so hopefully
[863]
you guys found this video useful
[864]
if you want to learn more ways of
[866]
reading you can check out this video
[868]
over here which talks about
[869]
exactly how i read 100 books every year
[872]
so thank you for watching and i'll catch
[873]
you in the next video bye
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