Like many other people, I’m not a big audiobook listener. My wife and kids all love to listen to audiobooks, and they do so multiple times a week. I maybe listen to an audiobook every 2-3 months, if that. So for people like myself, a full-on subscription to Audible or a similar service doesn’t make sense. That’s where Chirp Audiobooks comes in.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Chirp Audiobooks is an app that does not require a subscription but offers an extensive library of books at sale prices. Once you purchase a book, even at the sale price, it is yours forever. This is an excellent way for me to buy a book I may be interested in, listen to it, and then come back months later if I am interested in another book. This is going to be a short article, so read on for the full Chirp Audiobooks review.
Design
The Chirp app design is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and it’s also very minimal and straightforward. You only get three main sections:
- Settings: Here, you can choose to set up automatic downloads, Wi-Fi-only downloading, archive audiobooks, and use various support features.
- Activity: Here, you can see how much money you have saved if you purchased via a sale, how long you have listened to your books, and how many days you have listened.
- My Library: Here is where you’ll find all of your audiobooks with subcategories for unread, in progress, and finished. Here you also choose a book to listen to, which brings up the audio player interface.
There is also a search feature to search through your audiobooks, should you have an extensive library. The Chirp Audiobooks app is super minimal, and there’s not much going on. I think they did this on purpose to minimize distraction to keep users engaged with the book. It’s a lovely design.
Ease of Use/Functionality
The Chirp app is super easy to use, but there are two things it doesn’t have that may make the experience a little convoluted for some. While the app contains all of your books at the ready, you can’t buy the books through the app.
To buy books, you need to go to the Chirp website and purchase the books there. It’s not awful because the mobile version of the website is actually very useable and scales well to your mobile device. But it is a bit more cumbersome to have to exit the app to find new books. It would be nice to do that in the app.
You’ll also need to sign up for Chirp via the website as well. There is no option to sign up via the app alone. It can be a pain to deal with both the app and web interface, but it’s not the end of the world.
Overall, the app is easy to use, and their website is also laid out very well, with the mobile version scaling perfectly to make the mobile experience good.
Selection
So far, from what I can tell, Chirp has an extensive library with many categories, including New York Times best-sellers and recently released books. Most users shouldn’t have a problem finding what they want on this app.
Price/Value
The zero subscription fee is what drew me to Chirp. I’ve purchased four books so far and spent just under US$10. All of those books were on sale, and they have many books that are sometimes priced as low as .99 cents. The prices vary and can go to full retail, but most books have some discount on them.
Wrap Up
I like not having a monthly subscription fee for someone like me and just buying as I go. I don’t listen to enough audiobooks to want to pay a monthly fee; it’s not worth it to me. So Chirp works well, and I highly recommend it for those who want to listen to audiobooks now and then. For those who listen to audiobooks daily, this may not be the best choice.
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