The Digital Typewriter and the Unnecessarily Costly Pursuit of Focus -- or -- The Astrohaus Freewrite and the Unquestionably Awful Predicament of Romanticizing the Typewriter
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This review and commentary was originally written in 2022, and I stand by every word! Over a year later, after lots of community comments and with the release of the Freewrite Alpha, I’ve had some more thoughts.
It's been a year since I purchased an Astrohaus Freewrite, an e-ink typewriter that promised "distraction-free writing". In that time, I committed over 40,000 words to the device. I used it, in part, to write a feature-length screenplay, a chunky outline for another feature script, a novel, a whole bunch of blogs and journals, and I’m currently finishing another chunky outline for the next novel.
I recently saw a random Reddit post that suggested that most Freewrite users have typed less than 10,000 words. I share this for two reasons:
1) I get it, fellow Freewrite sufferers. I really, truly get it.
2) Since putting over 40,000 words on the Freewrite, I think I've (generously) put it through its paces to finally write this review.
I had a strong love/hate relationship with this gadget from the very start. A year later (and with Astrohaus providing an explicit, direct response to my question about future support), I can tell you I'm swimming even deeper into the warm, hateful waters.
Come join me. There's room for everyone (unlike the Freewrite philosophy), and you're free to laugh and mock my (totally expected) misfortune.
The Freewrite is a cool gadget. It's something to lust after, which I did since it debuted in 2016. Even before I bought one, I used the device as a pivotal element in my #TextMe😘 horror short story. As I waffled on the purchase (the current 3rd gen model is sitting at a cool $599), I would watch videos and read reviews. I knew how unnecessary the gadget was. At the same time, the best recommendation (pardon the lack of attribution) came from likening the writer to a musician -- no one begrudges a guitarist purchasing dozens of guitars and pedals! And what do the writers have? A laptop? A fancy fountain pen, if by chance you like working longhand?
Writers deserve treats, too.
When I landed my new day job, I gave myself that treat: the 2nd gen Freewrite Smart Typewriter. It was $549, and I was even able to throw a whopping $27.45 discount on the purchase.
Before we get into how abjectly awful the Freewrite really is, allow me to share a few more details about myself.
I'm a professional writer, inasmuch as I get paid to write words. This is critical to my day job, both present and over the past 10+ years of my professional creative career. This is also a major component of my personal work, either through my novels, screenplays I write on contract, or freelance creative producing.
My partner and I are fortunate enough to be well-compensated at our day jobs. We split our cost of living and enjoy the privilege of chasing whatever passion may percolate and whatever toys may tempt. In the past four months, I've purchased four different phones (two-and-a-half of which I wrote about over here). Since my professional work includes high-end, complex video editing, I'm always chasing after the most powerful hardware Apple offers. And since the Apple silicon transition, I've purchased four new computers and kept (and regularly use) two of them. I've bought game consoles to play a single title and then never revisited neither the console or the title.
I don't mind spending money, which I know is a very privileged position. But it's also a clarifying position because even for me, the Freewrite is the most significant waste of money on the shittiest piece of low-value, half-baked tech I've ever had the misfortune of lusting after.
So let's talk about what the Freewrite is, why it functions this way, and why the Freewrite is such an abjectly awful value.
The Freewrite, in a beautifully shitty nutshell.
The Freewrite Smart Typewriter is a glorious device. Solid metal, rubberized base, beautiful heft. A full-size mechanical keyboard is paired with a delightful e-ink screen (and I adore e-ink gadgets). It charges over USB-C (but only reliably from its original USB-A to USB-C cable), and the battery lasts for a remarkably long time (weeks, not days!).
The Freewrite form factor is fantastic. It works on a psychological level: when I sit down to work at my desk with the Freewrite, my brain is literally flipping the switch and entering "writing mode". Even better, I can take the Freewrite onto my back porch, enjoy a peaceful view with my cat, and hammer out the chapter outline I just finished thinking through during my walk.
It's a beautifully-crafted, single-purpose device that any writer would be proud to use.
That is ... until they actually use it.
And then, well, godspeed, fellow creative wizards. Chances are, your experience might just be dogshit.
Who the fuck is this thing for?
As a tiny thought experiment, I tried to figure out who the Freewrite audience really is. Again, the current 3rd gen model is priced at $599 -- so, above all, you need to have enough disposable income to justify this purchase.
Next, you need to be a writer (or at least aspire to write). Why is that not first? Well, think about it: everybody wants to write the great American novel, but not many will put in the work. In my opinion, aspirational writers must be driving Freewrite sales because most working writers don't have time to deal with the bullshit functionality of the device.
So the audience of the Freewrite narrows from: Disposable Income > Aspirational Writers > Assholes who Romanticize Old School Typewriters.
My biggest pet peeve is shitty premises, and after writing over 40,000 words on this gadget, I can tell you that applies 100% to the Freewrite.
The Freewrite is designed to be digitally analogous to the OG typewriter. Typewriters don't have arrow keys or a cursor, so neither does the Freewrite. You can't go back and edit a sentence two paragraphs back on a typewriter, so you can't do that on a Freewrite, either (not without literally backspace-deleting everything).
The Freewrite philosophy is overtly modeled after Hemingway, right down to the "Hemingwrite" edition of the typewriter. And the way the gadget works best is when you commit to writing in a stream-of-conscious style, similar to how you might journal, and worry about editing later. Because you can't go back and edit without deleting, and if you're being careful about your writing, you'll just sit there thinking about your words before you write them down, which only makes you want to edit even more when something didn't come out right.
I love single-purpose devices, but this is a magnificently shitty way of doing a smart typewriter.
First, anyone who works in creative knows that there's never just one way to do something. And forcing a creative to work in a specific way is massively counter-productive. What works for me may not work for you, and what works for Hemingway may only work for few.
And speaking of Hemingway: that romantic image of him tap-tap-tapping away on his typewriter? That came after he wore out his pencils, sketching out a first draft, longhand on paper. So ideally, the typewriter is a second (or final) draft tool to type up a handwritten first draft. And yet, this isn't at all how the Freewrite is designed to function.
Typewriters, intrinsically, were final draft machines. Each page and keystroke represented ink and paper that not only had a real cost associated with them but weren't available with next-day (or even next-hour) shipping from Amazon.
The words you typed mattered and a classic typewriter was, by nature, a massively idiotic first draft tool.
Not at all like a pen and paper, though. Where a typewriter can only move relentlessly forward, a pen and paper are tantamount to a painter and his canvas. Need to go back and scratch out a word -- your pen is in hand, and the correction is right there. Do you need to reorder paragraphs or rephrase a concept -- the margins of your canvas are begging for these critical notes! And at no time does the workflow of pen-and-paper drag you out of your creative flow, unlike almost every inherent function of the typewriter and the subsequent Freewrite.
I hate writing longhand, so I'm certainly not advocating the approach. But it's essential to understand how the creative writing process works in order to understand how badly the Freewrite satisfies it.
It took me a while to understand the binary, forward philosophy of the Freewrite, and the very fact this has to be explained is also an incredible indictment of the Freewrite's failed premise and broken analogy.
The Freewrite is binary: because you're either writing or you're not. There's no editing. There's no functionality. There's only writing.
The Freewrite is forward: because you're either writing in a forward direction or you're deleting.
If your writing style fits this horrifically narrow creative window, then the Freewrite might just be for you (assuming you have enough of that aforementioned disposable income).
If, on the other hand, you outline or plot or craft your sentences the way a sculptor may shape clay -- if your creative process takes you to unexpected places and you're open to such connections -- if you value tools like Trello, iA Writer, and their functionality ... my friends, please stay away from this over-priced, under-developed piece of tech.
Why does this thing have less value than literal horseshit?
Value is a fascinating proposition. It's subjective, can't always be quantified, and certainly doesn't correlate to price.
Horseshit is a fascinating value proposition. If you own a horse, the horseshit means your dude is alive and functioning. The horseshit is even a health indicator. Bonus value on horseshit: fertilizer! Extra bonus value: when horses are used in a parade or on public streets, someone has to be paid to clean up after them -- horseshit can literally boost the economy!
The Freewrite does one thing, and it does it in such a shitty way that it limits its usability to an incredibly small base of writers. Here's what would have added a tremendous amount of value to this device, at least for me:
Bluetooth (or wired) mode. I just spent a small fortune on a world-class keyboard ... so why in the fuck can't I use it with my Mac? Or iPad? Or literally anything else?
Arrow keys, cursor, and editing. Don't tell me how to write, motherfuckers -- the people who pay for the writing are the only ones who come close to getting that privilege.
Robust, ongoing support. This is where my love/hate relationship with the Freewrite transitioned entirely into the realm of hate.
The other day, I received a marketing email from Astrohaus touting a new firmware update for their products. It promised better performance, software (WASD) arrow keys, and more ... as long as you weren't using a Gen1 or Gen2 device.
So I wrote Astrohaus back. It was the first time I had ever reached out to a company like this -- I was a passionate customer, my tools matter, and the concept of the Freewrite was really good.
My fundamental question to Astrohaus was, having already spent $550 on a Gen2, how in the fuck was I supposed to justify spending another $600 to upgrade to those desperately necessary arrow keys and fundamental firmware updates?
Here is their response:
Unfortunately, you will not be able to upgrade your 2nd Generation Freewrite to 3rd Generation firmware. As the 3rd Generation Freewrite has a few major functional upgrades that older generations do not have, the new firmware is not compatible with older generations.
Of course, upgrading is entirely up to you (I also throw money at pointless stuff on the regular, so I genuinely understand your mindset!), but we have seen a vast improvement in the overall responsiveness of the device and the user experience.
Is there a trade-in program for current owners? No. A discount for otherwise abandoned early adopters? Of course not. And I wasn't even an early adopter -- I knew full and well the limitations of this device and still bought it some five years after it came out.
The joke's on me. I get that. Hopefully, if you're reading this, the joke won't be on you. For the love of all things creative, please understand your writing process and reallyunderstand the literal single-use case where the Freewrite actually makes sense.
One of these things is a brilliantly designed piece of technology that fully embraces the fundamental philosophical principles of digital minimalism. The other one is the Astrohaus Freewrite.
A solution that doesn’t comprehend the problem.
Here's why I'm angry.
I love single-purpose devices. I love e-ink.
I love the creative process.
After my journey with two tiny phones, I finally bit the bullet and dropped $400 on the Punkt phone, a beautifully-designed take on digital detox. And Punkt isn't the only company waving this minimalist, single-purpose, intentional flag. Light Phone does the exact same thing, only with a distinctly different take on hardware.
Both of these companies understand the problem the Freewrite attempts to address: all of everything, all of the time, in the palm of our hands is a dangerous proposition.
We need to be able to disconnect.
We need to be able to focus.
Both Punkt and Light Phone deliver beautifully single-purpose devices that still provide remarkable value. The Punkt, like the Freewrite, is a joy to hold and look at. Its single purpose is phone calls, and -- unlike the Freewrite's single purpose of creative writing -- the Punkt handles calls really well.
But just because something is single-purpose doesn't mean it can't deliver more value. At the very least, the Freewrite should function as a Bluetooth keyboard for other devices, but that would apparently be fucking anarchy.
The Punkt phone? Yes, it does calls. It also has a speakerphone and Bluetooth, in case I don't want to hold the device to my ear. It does texts. I can share a tethered data connection, jot a quick note, and use pre-built templates for SMS. I can even connect a Bluetooth keyboard to the phone, if I really want to. I can't imagine why, but it's fascinating that Punkt allows the user to have this choice.
As opposed to the much more expensive Freewrite where I can either write in a forward, stream-of-conscious direction ... or not write at all.
I understand hardware limitations for rolling out firmware updates. I also understand it's a problem Astrohaus created for themselves.
Both the Punkt and the Light Phone are essentially heavily-skinned Android devices. Despite having no multimedia functionality, the Punkt even has a massive 16GB of storage for no apparent reason than System-on-a-Chip design is cheaper than custom internal hardware.
And have you noticed how big the Freewrite is? I'm no engineer, but why the hell doesn't it have $30 of budget smartphone hardware inside? That's how fucking easy it would be to build a perfect e-ink typewriter, unlock functionality for those who want it, and support it in the long-term using industry-standard, Linux-based development.
But for whatever reason, that's not what we got with the Freewrite. And while I spent a year typing over 40,000 words and trying to make the Freewrite work for me, I still pivoted to a Macbook (and iPad) with Final Draft for screenplays, a Boox e-ink tablet and Keychron mechanical keyboard (with iA Writer and Trello) for my novel, and an iPad and Magic Keyboard for everything else (including this blog).
If you came here for recommendations, those are pretty much them in the last paragraph. I love the form factor of the Freewrite, and the only thing that genuinely matches it is the old-school Alphasmart educational keyboards. The Alphasmart Neo is the model most professional writers prefer. However, when considering how grand a failure the Freewrite is, I'd recommend taking a peep at the Alphasmart Dana -- a device that brought the bleeding edge of Palm OS to an Alphasmart keyboard.
Form factor aside, the rest comes down to software. I'm a big advocate of iA Writer and have happily purchased it across all of my devices. This app has an excellent focus mode that keeps the paragraph you're working on in the middle of your screen.
Minimally speaking, an iPad Air with a Magic Keyboard is a chunk of change but creates a delightful, portable writing environment. (But it pales in comparison to e-ink once you step onto the back porch!)
And if you like e-ink as much as I do, the Boox Note Air 2 is a robust Android tablet with all the functionality that comes with Android. Pairing it with a Bluetooth keyboard makes it an excellent desk-bound setup (this is how I wrote the majority of my recent novel). Bonus value: the Note Air 2 comes with a pen and is perfect for longhand. Plus, it's a fucking dope e-reader. I have (and have used) a lot of tablets, and this is one of my favorites.
My final caveat: this post is written from the perspective of the Gen2 Freewrite Smart Typewriter. The firmware updates and software arrow keys are available on the Gen3 and Traveler models. I cannot speak to whether or not the software arrow keys are useful or help the core functionality of the device ... but I can tell you that -- fundamentally -- this is a device built on a bad premise. Until you fix the premise, everything else tends to be lipstick on a pig. Finally, as noted above, the sore part -- the bias of this review -- and the reason I'll be shelving my Freewrite, is that Astrohaus is giving Gen1 and Gen2 owners no other path to support and core functionality than to spend an additional $600 $650 on a new device. (Of course the prices are going up!)
Even for me, that's a little too fucking ridiculous.
###
