Freewrite review

In case if anyone would be interested to know, how it feels to use "Astrohaus" Freewrite or so called typewriter of the 21-th century, I have some thoughts from testing it in real life.



Long story short - it's not perfect, it has some quirks, such as low screen redraw rate and general software issues but it's the only dedicated writing machine in this century, and it's a pleasure to type on it once inital questions are resolved. I did not find a dedicated topic to discuss writer's hardware, so I thought AW Roundtable might be good for this type of topic. Moderators, plesse correct me if I'm wrong

It's a device for you, if:

* You like mechanical keyboards
* You like e-ink screens
* You need or want to sync your work with online services
* You are just fine with dedicated writing device, which does not allow editing
* You have a nostalgy for older hardware, such as typewriters or computers of the 80-ties
* You don't mind spending 500 USD or more for a new gadget

This device is not for you, if:

* You like to edit while you type
* You do not trust or do not want to use the Cloud
* You can not get used to low redraw rate of e-ink screens
* You do not plan to write at all
* You prefer to work on a fully featured text editor

If you are interested, you can visit my blog or just ask questions here - will be happy to answer.

Kylabelle said:

Hi there, and welcome to AW. It could be a good discussion about hardware for writers. I have two corrections to ask you to make.

First is the image size which is larger than our guidelines allow. If you could scale it down to 400 by 400 pixels that would be great; otherwise it will need to be removed.

Second, we ask that people not link to their private sites and blogs as the main content of posts. We strongly prefer such links to be in your signature line. You could instead reference your sigline, once you've made that change, and indicate there is a review for anyone interested.

Thanks for taking care of this.

ETA: Here is the FAQ about image size, and links to other FAQs about images on AW: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?304595-FAQ-Image-Size-Guidelines

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Thanks, all fixed now I guess

Filigree said:

It looks like an interesting machine, but I'd only use it out of desperation. I edit as I write.

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Well, technically you have limited editing capability - but you need to backspace to reach editing point, so that sentece or paragraph will have to be rewritten. There is no cursor, and you can not insert anything in the middle of the text. It does works more like a typewriter (at least ot does not marks corrections with "X").

Ok, technically it would be more like refresh ratel however, for E-ink screen it's the speed your display contents are updated. Since it's really slow, I called it a redraw . It does creates a problem when typing fast, since text on Freewrite's screen is displayed with significant delay.

Kylabelle said:

Ah. Well, since I am Typo Master here I probably would lose patience pretty quickly. But it looks like a neat gadget if you know how to type better than I do, and, what, live on a boat? I gather it's somehow more portable than a tablet or laptop?

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I noticed, that once you get used to this, it's possible to type fast even not reading the screen. Keyboard is great quality, so there aren't many mistakes when getting used to it, and they all can be corrected later anyway.

Yes, it's portable, it even does have a handle to carry it around:



(reminds me computers of the 80-ties), and you can expect about 10-14 hours on a full charge, so it's more than enough to take it out in the woods and start typing, and it should last several days with average use, like writing 2-3 hours a day. However, it is much heavier than a tablet, 4 lbs is more the weight of a "normal" laptop.

My favorite feature besides mechanical keyboard is a separate status screen, which can show different information, including a very nice word count:



No, I don't live on a boat, but I often like to go there to write, and when it's season I'm sailing as well. It just gives nice inspiration to write, being away from home, to feel the wind, the waves, to feel the freedom...