This means you can listen to audio of a book in languages that may not be otherwise available. What’s more, Google’s Read Aloud feature also supports as many languages as the company’s other text-to-speech offerings do. The dulcet tones of Google’s text to speech voice are recognisably robotic, but when the price is free and you can seamlessly jump between having a book read to you and reading it yourself, the practical value that this feature adds to any (and all existing) ebook purchases becomes really hard to overlook. Nevertheless, if you’re looking to work your way through a more academic text or keen to save that little bit of extra cash amid rising inflation, it might be a decent way to go about it.

What's more, Read Aloud is supported not just for books bought via Google's own online storefront but also those bought elsewhere and imported into the app.Īgain, the end user experience here is nowhere near as cinematic or slick what you'll get from a modern and mainstream audiobook provider like or Audible. Once enabled, this can instantly turn any ebook in your Google Play library into an audiobook. In the years since then, Google has further developed this tech into a feature called Read Aloud. The final product is not quite as seamless as having Siri read you a bedtime story, but it’s not far off either.

Rather than feature the kind of pomp, circumstance and bespoke production quality you’d find in a traditional ebook, these audiobooks relied entirely on the company’s text-to-speech tech. While the Play Store has sold audiobooks for a couple of years now, these freebies were a little different to your average audiobook. Back in 2020, Google started rolling out a number of free audiobooks via the Google Play Store.

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