Freewrite Smart Typewriter | Digital Typewriter with E Ink Display for Distraction-Free Writing | Wifi-Enabled Word Processor Syncs Directly to the Cloud | Dedicated Drafting Machine for Authors

I am so impressed how quickly my daily word count increased and how I’ve been more passionate about writing more than ever before. I love the keyboard and the backlit screen. I’ve been wanting one of these and originally bought the Alpha but didn’t really love it. But I liked it enough to invest in the Smart Typewriter and I’m glad I did. I’m a filmmaker and this tool has helped me work on my investors outline, write and explore ideas for short films, and work on my first short stories (something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time bc one of my dreams is to release a collection of short stories). The battery life is incredible. The set up was very easy. I love the built but I will say that the product is very pricey and I wish it wasn’t so cost prohibitive so more people could use this tool and increase their writing output.

Excellent packaging. Product is great. Just finished 1000 words of writing. Still learning keys and exploring potential. As everyone before me, the felt bag cover is a bit of a struggle to get on. Hopefully it stretches a bit.

It's an attractive piece of kit. It has an interesting aesthetic, and the idea of typing using an e-ink display is a nearly perfect wallet crowbar. But this is not a good way to get that done. First, the display is very slow. It is very noticeably slow. It is... distractingly slow. It's so slow that in the existence of faster options (of which there are many) it's enough to decide away from the Freewrite for one of those. Then it gets worse from there. Astrohaus wants to bind you tightly to them so that your success--even your hobby--depends on their continued existence as a company. This most obviously starts with the need to build a postbox account with them to have your draft work emailed to your desktop device--assuming it reaches a point where that's the next logical step. You can also get access to your files by mounting the Freewrite as a USB drive. But if you dig any deeper, things start getting uncomfortable. All your work is saved on the internal drive as read only rtf files. The only way to change the content of those files is via the Freewrite device. This means that you can't move partial documents to another device to work on, then put them back on the Freewrite. Unless you subscribe to their enhanced postbox service. That will allow you to copy or send files via postbox to your Freewrite via wifi, rather than that USB cable you have right there. That's a strange thing to do. It's only a requirement because AH decided it should be. It's not a functional limitation of the tech itself, and the default, simplest arrangement for things to be, isn't like that all. That would be to have the internal drive mount as a USB drive when connected to a computer, and then be browseable and usable as such, to include adding files that may or may not even make sense to have on such a device, simply because it's a drive. The reason for designing it this way, is to create a problem for their end user, so they can then sell them an ongoing solution. For some, that might be enough to shake off interest. It was more the door hitting me in the keister as I abandoned ship. What bothered me were other deeper design choices that echo the same tentacular, clingy mentality shown in the postbox thing, but in a manner half abandoned while still being very much a problem. The deliberately non standard keyboard. I didn't mind that it comes with mediocre keyswitches, because I'm handy with a soldering iron and when it comes to what I want, I can be pretty blase about warranties. I had no problem swapping out keyswitches--though the ribbon cable was a little bit of a nuisance. Attempts to dampen the ping of the aluminium case were less successful, but I could have lived with that--much as I was also willing to adapt to the basic quirks of file storage and the idiosyncrasies all embedded devices crop up. What ultimately turned my gut with disgust was when I realized Astrohaus had deliberately and needlessly altered the keyboard layout so that no profile of aftermarket keycaps would fit it except the ones they personally made. They did this by subtracting a portion of the length of the modifier keys on one side and adding it to the length on the other. This causes the keyboard layout to look right. It doesn't interfere with typing, only replacing keycaps. Astrohaus is the only source of modifiers (or spacebars) that will fit the Freewrite. And they aren't there. They have exactly one set of aftermarket keycaps. I can't emphasize enough that this was a deliberate, and purposeful design choice. It meant they had to foot the bill for a handful of special molds so they could then have an iron fist on a market they almost immediately abandoned. Probably because it turns out, churning out variations of keycaps that only fit one type of keyboard only used by a niche market isn't much of a moneymaker. They could have either reduced the cost of the device, or possibly shifted that budget to a better screen--or even simply pocketed it. They could have produced a better device by doing less, and they decided against it. If the keycap thing were the only issue, I'd still think less of the device because it wasn't necessary or useful to bring the device into being. It's not like Topre where the incompatible designs predate compatibility being a concern. This was a device that was designed from the start using recognized components for a marketplace that thrives on general inter-compatibility and customized end user experience, to market to a niche of people who are in those communities, only to not provide the whole reason for that compatibility. It's an ugly choice they made to try and drive people to buy all their accessories from AH. But add in the Postbox issue, the lockdown on writing files to the internal drive, and above all, the latency of the screen and lack of well optimized partial refresh--and it's just a disgusting mess and you can do and deserve to have better. I can't even bring myself to sell it because I have too much empathy for the hypothetical buyer.

I must admit, the Freewrite is kind of a joy to type on. Astrohaus gets a lot right, but the software leaves something to be desired and the device is too limited to justify the price. Purchase a small form Android based e-ink reader and a hot swappable, BT mechanical keyboard with a phone / tablet slot and you can recreate the experience for less than half the price with better software. (You will also gain the ability to change keycaps and switches to meet your needs and you will get keyboard RGB backlighting.) It won't be the same because the Freewrite hardware is an exceptional build but you will get the distraction free, e-ink experience for less.

First of all, I want to say that I really like this device. The ease of use, and overall experience of the keyboard is very good, and I write with it regularly. There are a few things that make the Freewrite not the perfect writing machine though. Firstly: it writes in a very basic text editor. It's so basic that it doesn't even have a function to use tabs or indentations. Instead, when you hit the tab button, it applies 8 spaces to the start of your line. It looks fine, but when it comes to editing later in Google Docs, it becomes a hassle. I have to go to a third party site for coders that converts spaces into tabs. Not a dealbreaker, but it is inconvenient. Secondly: the screen. I love an E-Ink display, and I would replace them on almost all of my devices if the technology was there...but it's not. I don't mind the display, but it is just a little bit too laggy for my liking. I quickly got used to it, but it does become noticeable on occasion. Especially when I want to go back, and see if I accidentally misspelled a word, and it hasn't appeared yet. It's also at slightly too flat of an angle. Depending on what your set up is, it may be a bit uncomfortable to look at for longer periods of time. It could be remedied by just tilting it down a couple degrees, so you would be able to see it easier from a lower angle. And thirdly: the cost. It's far too expensive for what it is. I realize that they are a smaller company, and in order for this product to even exist, it probably has to be around this price point. I spent the money, because I love the experience of typing on a manual typewriter--or even an electric one--but I don't like the process of transcribing my writing later into a digital document. This solves that problem. But, I would be much more lenient if it was half the price. There is literally no competition in this field right now though. I wish that there were. That all being said, I bought one, and I don't want to go back to writing without it. It's the closest thing I can get to exactly what I want. It's also very nice that it automatically syncs to a Google document. I love the feel of the keyboard, and it's very cool when I take it out to coffee shops and things. I can't easily take a typewriter everywhere with me, and I wouldn't really want to anyway. I can take this with me anywhere--in one of the felt cases--and there's no excuse for me not to write. I've accomplished quite a bit on this device, and I've enjoyed the experience. If you have the money to spend, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one. If you're on the fence about it, just realize that there are quirks, and it's not perfect by any means.

I bit the bullet and bought this thing, yeah kinda expensive, but dang is it a great help. Ive had it for about 4 months and have written more then i have ever before. It just feels so damn great, the screen lag people talk abouts not a big deal, it dose lag pretty bad when you reach about 10000 words in a doc. But then you just switch to the next doc. Or download your file, erase, and keep going lag goes back to normal. The lag honestly feels like the slight delay from hitting a key on an old timey keyboard into the striker ribbon. Using one of those payment systems really helps, im paying about 30$ a month for it, and adding a bit more each time to pay it off. I felt that it gave me the drive to write more, and want to write more. Oh and the instant transfer to postbox and gmail is super great, i love reading my pervious nights work each morning before work. Thank you freewrite for such a great product, i cant wait to see what else you come up with.

My husband has been trying to write for years but always got distracted. He was frustrated by how slow his progress was and never found a comfortable rhythm to create. When we saw this product, it piqued both of our interests as a possible solution for him. We took the leap and bought it, and his productivity and creativity has improved ten-fold. He writes nearly every morning with little issue. He has large hands but is able to use the mechanical keyboard comfortably. The only bad (or good) thing is that the keys are loud when you type. They make a lovely sound, but not exactly subtle when trying to write in public. So my husband restricts its use to the house.

EDIT: 6-3-23. Astrohaus has decided to offer a half baked subscription service for their devices. For $4 a month, you will be able to download stuff to your device instead of having send only. Ridiculous. I took two stars off for these shenanigans. I'm frankly very disappointed that they would offer this "service" for such an expensive and niche product. Instead of milking customers, they need to foster good customer service. I had wanted to get the new Alpha they are coming out with mid year, but I now have no desire to purchase the new device, nor any future Astrohaus products. Great device even though it's obscenely priced. It has one job and one job only: creating first drafts. The keyboard is SWEET. One of the best I've ever used. The battery life is great. If I use it heavily it can get me through a week. I'd say it can get around 15 to 20 hours of life out of a full charge. I've had no issue with the wifi or with it syncing on the company's post website. You can ONLY write on this. You can't download a document and it's hard to edit since it requires a combination of keys to move around. If you are the kind of writer who can crank out a first draft with minimal edits, this will suit you. I have to comment on the price. You can buy a decent laptop for this amount of money. But if you wanna live the pure writer life and zip out first drafts with NO distractions, this will do. I wish it was about $200 less. One thing of note, I suspect the limitations in creating small runs of electronic items is paying into the price. If they were making hundreds of thousands of Freewrites a year, they could probably keep the production cost way down. At the time of this writing I have put out 25 books. When I started writing it was on a Netbook (remember those things?) and I was a pro at cranking out words and ignoring edits. This definitely brings back that feeling. Plus, the keyboard is silky smooth. You can easily spend this amount of money on stupider things. I'm happy with it and I've gotten a lot of use out of this thing in the last few months.