Physical Books or Kindle — Which is Best?

a lot of people ask me if it's better to

read physical books or if it's better to

read from an e-reader and here's the

quick answer so you don't have to watch

the rest of the video if you don't want

to they're both fine but there are some

advantages and disadvantages to both but

before I get to that list and I will get

to it quickly let me just make two

remarks you shouldn't actually feel like

you have to choose I personally read

physical books quite often but I also

own a Kindle and I've used it for many

years and recently a company called onx

sent me their books note Air 2 which is

a lot like a Kindle except it has a

stylus so you can take notes and for the

past month or two I've been using that

as well and I'm not going to talk about

audiobooks much but I listen to Audible

and a few other audiobook services on my

iPhone um at least several times a week

and my own reading it's typically harder

books get read as physical books easier

fiction that I read for fun which is

mostly science fiction or fantasy gets

read on a Kindle and then lighter

non-fiction say like a personal finance

book uh I would listen to that as an

audio book because I feel okay listening

to those books while multitasking and I

guess that's the whole thing I'll say

about audio books people tend to

multitask when they listen to AUD books

which is fine but you should just

understand that some books do not allow

you to multitask if you want to

understand them they demand your

attention and so you shouldn't listen to

those books as audio books unless you're

willing to basically sit there and just

listen but let's talk about why someone

might prefer physical books over digital

books reading a physical book really is

my preferred method it's the one that I

love the most the first reason is that I

just I like how it feels I I like how

physical books feel in my hand I think

that a well printed physical book is

really beautiful this is actually not

the best printing it's a little dense

but a well- printed physical book

especially like a nice especially like a

nicely proportioned and types set hard

cover those just feel good and if you

can have a really enjoyable reading

experience where you're holding the book

and it feels good then I think you're

going to be able to maintain focus on

that book for much longer and it's going

to allow you to do that kind of deep

reading that I really think is so

critical if you want to be like a good

reader I also think that physical books

lend themselves towards my preferred

note taking style so my preferred note

taking style is to actually physically

annotate books I then export onto note

cards and I sort the note cards and

that's how I get my ideas I did a whole

video about that that you could watch if

you're interested I guess you could say

I have a really nice workflow for

physical books and I don't see any

reason to really change that and a third

reason is that I just prefer to get away

from screens sometimes I make YouTube

videos I work in Tech I'm on my phone

all the time my whole life is filled

with screens having a place and an

activity that I love to do that I

regularly do that doesn't involve like

charging something or looking at a

display that's going to refresh on me or

anything like that it just feels really

good the act of reading itself is kind

of my escape and just as a kind of

almost romantic point I like that

physical books like show their age I

like that when you've read through it

you can tell I like when you can see a

little bit of your annotations from the

past digital books just don't show their

age in quite the same way but I'm not

totally against using an e-reader this

is probably my third Kindle I've been

using one for over a decade I like the

fact that all of my Kindle books that

I've ever bought they're all available

here like that is really convenient I

like the fact that it's light I like the

fact that it holds a charge for a long

time so even though you do have to

charge it um you can go a whole vacation

and you could just take this thing I can

carry thousands of books with me and if

I want to buy another one I can usually

just access it on some kind of store my

biggest criticism of the Kindle is that

it's locked into the Amazon EOS system

but if that continued to seriously

bother me I could switch to this books

if my biggest criticism of the Kindle is

that it's locked into the Amazon

ecosystem well this tablet doesn't have

those problems um in fact it just runs

Android so you can install other apps

and then you can just buy books directly

or you can load them so you can just put

PDFs on here for instance um this might

have been really use for me actually

when I was in graduate school when I

read so many articles as PDFs if I

wanted to just take digital versions of

those in fact my wife who's finishing

her PhD still she probably wants to

steal this from me so that she can use

it for her grad school work digital

books and e-readers add a kind of

convenience to your life that for some

people means that that's all they're

going to want like that convenience is

so valuable that they're willing to give

up on the other benefits of reading

physical books I found that in my

personal reading practice uh e-readers

and physical books they just naturally

coexist I don't think of them as really

in competition with one another so if

you want like the official Jared

Henderson statement of is it better to

read physical books or to read ebooks it

should be I have a I have a preference

for physical books but I don't feel like

you really have to choose and don't feel

like you have to be totally partisan

about this and you've got to pick one

and then argue why the other one is

terrible or something uh that's the

wrong kind of attitude to have there's a

good chance that if I'm going to read

more ebooks in the future I will switch

to something like a books U from Onyx uh

and I don't just say that because they

sent me a free one I really just think

it might be a better product um this is

not a product review in the traditional

sense you can go find those elsewhere it

seems to have most of the benefits of

the Kindle and doesn't have many of the

downsides one thing that I really like

is that they made it really easy to

download public domain books without

going through another store or without

being charged all right this is a short

video I'm just trying to get some

thoughts out there if you think I've

missed something totally we can have a

debate in the comments about which which

really is better physical books or

digital books that's all I have for you

today so until next time take care