What Exactly is Blinkist?

The number of newly published books has increased in recent decades. Thousands of new books are written every year. How do you keep up with an ever-growing reading list? ! That’s where Blinkist comes in – by providing easy-to-understand versions of popular books. In short, Blinkist is a nonfiction summary service. There are thousands of book summaries or blinks in the Blinkist library, and new titles are being added.

Blinkist Web Services

After creating an account with Blinkist, you can access your online profile, including your library, so you can read or listen to blinks from your laptop or desktop computer. It has two separate tabs for reading in progress and completed reading. Each item is just a blinking link, with a handy progress bar at the bottom: Like the app, the in-browser reading interface is minimalist. Every detail is designed to contribute to a distraction-free reading experience.

The entire menu has been removed and replaced by three buttons: a home page link (which takes you back to your library), a content button (to open a slide-in overlay with the current blinking structure), and a font size control. Not much, but you need to focus on the abstract at hand.

Blink App

The most common interface is probably the Blinkist app, as it covers some of the most popular use cases. Note some nice minor changes like showing/hiding a blinking filter or a subtly colored progress bar based on status (not started, in progress, done):

How Much Does Blinkist Cost?

The Blinkist app is free to download and install. But with a free account, you can only read one digest per day: Daily Picks. It’s a series of random flashes, so you can’t control what you read. Full access requires a premium subscription. Blinkist offers monthly and annual plans. The easiest way is to use a 7-day free trial available for a yearly billing cycle:

The second option is to sign up for a free daily account, which allows you to read random blinks once a day:

Pros and Cons

• Access to concise summaries of the best nonfiction books allows absorbing maximum knowledge and wisdom flexibly and quickly.
• Web interface and mobile application for Android and iOS devices. Ability to sync Blink’s library to Kindle.
• It helps to pre-select books to read in full and become familiar with new ideas, concepts, and facts. Can sync to Evernote account.
• Ability to send feedback on existing blinks in style/grammar and content.
• Audio may freeze on rare occasions when transitioning from one part of a flash to the next, which is observed with poor connectivity to the host device.
• There is currently no way to recommend Blinks you read to others using Blinkist directly from the app (instead, you must share a link).

Competitors: Better Than Blinkist?

The data above shows that Blinkist is more attractively priced than its main competitors. It looks good considering the size of the library: the value for money gets even better when we factor in the user interface and functionality.

Is it Worth Paying for Blinkist?

This is one of the most common problems faced by new users of the service. Everyone will have to answer for themselves based on their preferences, but here’s one way to think about the cost of a Blinkist Premium subscription. At $89.99 per year, the annual payment equates to $7.49 per month—roughly the equivalent of buying 2-3 (depending on where you live) coffees from your favorite coffee chain,it doesn’t cost much to acquire knowledge of human enrichment.

Conclusion

The user experience of the Blinkist app is excellent. The app gently guides you through only two real-world use cases: reading and listening to book summaries. The Blinkist app is so helpful that the pros outweigh the cons. Use Blinkist as an extension and supplement your daily task, not a replacement.