After reading a recent article about the effects of blue light on laboratory rats (brain shrinkage and impaired mental faculties) I became concerned. I can’t be the only writer to spend a large part of the day staring at a computer screen. There are eyeglasses you can buy that help filter out this light but I don’t know how effective they really are.
Added to this, I have noticed a quite marked deterioration in my eyesight recently which might be only due to my age - but one can’t help worrying.
I looked into the possibility of buying a different device to work on but the only practical solution seemed to be an e-ink screen - like the Kindle - and the few options I discovered were very expensive.
When I first heard about the Freewriter, the so-called ‘yuppie typewriter’, it did seem to offer some sort of solution and I bought one. (I notice there was a thread on here about them but it’s been closed.) It has the matte screen and e-ink and its limited editing facilities didn’t particularly bother somebody who once wrote on real typewriters.
And it’s fine as far as it goes but it has one serious restriction - it can only be used for first time drafting. You cannot edit and then reload your manuscript which strikes me as perverse and makes it about half as useful as it might be. The aesthetic the makers have pursued is to deliberately make it NOT like a Word Processor, to ‘strip it down’ for ‘creative action’ so to speak. That’s all very well but it’s unnecessarily limiting.
(I’m assuming here that most writers like to draft and re-edit, as I do, in a circular progress. If you write scripts, then that cycle is a tight one.)
I’ve spoken to the makers about this and I believe they might do something about it eventually but at the moment they are busy putting another prototype on the market - a laptop version. This new machine allows insertions of text but not CUT and PASTE, alas. Nevertheless I have one on order.
I was wondering if any other members had tried the Freewriter and what their reactions were? I know many people recommend the AlphaSmart Neo - a much cheaper solution - but I find its green screen off-putting.
Added to this, I have noticed a quite marked deterioration in my eyesight recently which might be only due to my age - but one can’t help worrying.
I looked into the possibility of buying a different device to work on but the only practical solution seemed to be an e-ink screen - like the Kindle - and the few options I discovered were very expensive.
When I first heard about the Freewriter, the so-called ‘yuppie typewriter’, it did seem to offer some sort of solution and I bought one. (I notice there was a thread on here about them but it’s been closed.) It has the matte screen and e-ink and its limited editing facilities didn’t particularly bother somebody who once wrote on real typewriters.
And it’s fine as far as it goes but it has one serious restriction - it can only be used for first time drafting. You cannot edit and then reload your manuscript which strikes me as perverse and makes it about half as useful as it might be. The aesthetic the makers have pursued is to deliberately make it NOT like a Word Processor, to ‘strip it down’ for ‘creative action’ so to speak. That’s all very well but it’s unnecessarily limiting.
(I’m assuming here that most writers like to draft and re-edit, as I do, in a circular progress. If you write scripts, then that cycle is a tight one.)
I’ve spoken to the makers about this and I believe they might do something about it eventually but at the moment they are busy putting another prototype on the market - a laptop version. This new machine allows insertions of text but not CUT and PASTE, alas. Nevertheless I have one on order.
I was wondering if any other members had tried the Freewriter and what their reactions were? I know many people recommend the AlphaSmart Neo - a much cheaper solution - but I find its green screen off-putting.
Last edited: