Six Weeks with the Astrohaus Freewrite

I've now had my Freewrite for about six weeks. I've avoided writing a review until I had time to absorb all that this gadget is and does. Since it arrived, I've written about 5,000 words on it, so I've now had time to form some opinions.

Yes, it's expensive. That's why I dithered around for several months despite lusting after the device from the days of the Hemingwrite Kickstarter campaign.

At this point, it's a simple matter to list pros and cons. The cons are few, so I'll offer them first. There are three.

Con #1: I'm a bit embarrassed to mention the expense of the Freewrite because I'm not a wealthy man, and people I know may judge me for having bought one. But that's neither here nor there. So, onward. Ok, Astrohaus. I get it that a Cherry MX brown keyboard is worth at least $100, and I'll give you another hundred for the bitchin' aluminum case, and another hundred for the guts of the thing, which seem to me about the equivalent of an Amazon Kindle. So, $300-350 seems reasonable to me. $500 isn't, and aside from weirdos like me who are willing to spend a lot on something because it's beautiful (And the Freewrite is.), I don't see you folks selling a lot of these things for half a grand apiece, plus another $30 for shipping within the United States.

Con #2*: You may think I'm going to mention the lack of arrow keys, but I'm not. Con #2, for me, is that Freewrite doesn't dump my shitty first drafts directly into the word processor of my choice. Instead, text must be copied from Postbox , the Astrohaus cloud service, and pasted into a separate application such as Word or Scrivener. Mind you, this isn't a big deal. But...why? Take the extra step, Astrohaus, of integrating the software into popular word processing applications. Why force the cut-and-paste drill? Give us a better option.

Con #3: Battery life and charging level indicator. The battery life isn't great. My Kindle Paperwhite's battery can last for weeks with the Wi-Fi on. Why shouldn't the Freewrite's battery last as long? There's a lot of space inside this gadget for a bigger battery, so I suppose weight was a consideration, but couldn't a software update eke a few more hours out of my battery?

I'd also like the ability to monitor the charge level. As it is, the device issues the warning, "Low battery. Please plug in charger." I have no clue at this point how much operating time may remain. A minute? Another hour? It would be helpful to see a standard battery graph or charge percentage displayed, perhaps as one of the "special" key options to keep it out of sight until needed.

The pros are many. By far, the best thing about the Freewrite is the Cherry MX keyboard. It's the best thing I've ever typed on, and I'm addicted to the sound and feel of it. I love it so much that I recently replaced my Apple keyboard, which I've always enjoyed using, with a Rosewill Cherry MX brown mechanical keyboard, because I want to have the same tactile experience while editing that I get while hammering out a draft on the Freewrite. The Freewrite's keyboard has ruined me, and I expect to use mechanical keyboards for the rest of my life. This discovery alone, and the improvement in the experience of typing, makes the purchase worthwhile.

This thing is, as I've mentioned, a beautiful device. The retro look, combined with the sturdy (4 pounds) aluminum case, make it an instant conversation piece, which may be a good thing, or not. In my case, maybe ironically, an old Alphasmart Neo case when I'm carrying the Freewrite in public to avoid such attention. I don't sit around in coffee shops with this thing, though if that's where one writes, so be it. (It's a bit flashy for me, and the keyboard might be noisy enough to irritate certain people.) Anyway, I like how it looks on my desk when I'm not using it.

Overall, the acquisition of a Freewrite has been a boon to my writing life, and if I accidentally dropped the thing into the bay today, I'd order another immediately.

*The inability to stop and edit is integral to the concept of the Freewrite, and it works. I've just about doubled my daily word count using this clunky, gorgeous monstrosity, and I'm thrilled. If I were constantly going back to edit myself, as I've had the bad habit of doing for so very long, I'd still be trundling along at the glacial pace at which I've always worked. This device enforces a damn-the-torpedoes approach that has increased my word count and the inability to delete ideas as I type them. It's all there to edit later, and some of the  ideas I would otherwise delete have turned out to be keepers.

20 January 2017 Update:

Adam from Astrohaus responded to this post on January 18th with the following thoughtful message. It addresses everything except the battery life, and he's right. I may just love the Freewrite more now. I do hope Astrohaus can do something about the power management. Meanwhile, I'll keep the power cable handy. Thanks, Adam.

Hey Steven!

From the review you just published, it sounds like you are loving the Freewrite! That's awesome. But I may be able to get you to like it even more :)

Con 2 mentions that you have to copy and paste. May I suggest that you use Dropbox? It's free and works extremely well. You will also find that once you connect it and have it running on your computer, there will be native word documents saved directly into the dropbox folder, i.e. no more copy and pasting. You can go from writing on the Freewrite to opening a docx file on your computer! You should also look into markdown formatting because it is an ultra simple way to get basic formatting into your document. http://support.getfreewrite.com/article/42-using-markdown-syntax-on-your-freewrite.

Regarding con 3, hold the spacebar to show the battery indicator (and alternate keyboard layout if you are using one). We don't put this on the console screen because we don't want people fixated on the battery life. Admittedly, we have still have work to do to optimize the power management.

Hope this helps!!

-- Adam hello@astrohaus.com