[infide1castr0]

I have never tried out one of these, though I have seen the adverts before and thought they looked quite cool. I wonder how useful for the Art of Writing, however, going "backwards" really is. I am all for distraction-free writing, and think that ignoring some (if not all) of the attention economy is a wonderful life decision. However, wouldn't the lineage of writers look fondly upon certain aspects of technology? To put it another way, I would love a device like this (or even just an updated Alphasmart from back in the day) that could also include something like gemini network connectivity, allowing the fruits of my distraction-free writing to be incorporated into my life here in 2021.

Will certainly be on the lookout for such 'revolutionary' devices.

[LanceH]

The freewrite is hugely expensive, and the software janky. I have had it get stuck in a reboot cycle multiple times. Beware the 90 day warrantee which won't help if the update throws you into endless reboots after 90 days.

The e-ink display updates a little slow, which is fine, if you're writing at draft quality. If you're editing, you really can't jump around the page at all, and backspacing to correct words is cumbersome.

The build quality feels like it is a generic e-ink display, hard plastic case, mediocre keyboard and a raspberry pi (or equivalent) stitched together. While it is hard, it doesn't feel rugged at all.

When it works it does it's job well for throwing a first draft of writing onto the page -- which is what I've used it for. The long battery life from e-ink display is nice as well. Having a real keyboard compared to the flat-key chromebooks or small laptops is nice as well.

I really want to like it, and it is nice when it's working and I'm just throwing text -- and by this I mean prose, nothing like markdown -- out there to see what sticks for editing later. For being a single task item, it failed to be hassle free and that just kills it for me.