Thoughts on the Freewrite

I saw a post online about this:

getfreewrite.com/

What do you guys think of this device? I will wait to write my personal opinion until I get some posts because I don't want to influence responses.

Other urls found in this thread:

ebay.com/itm/AlphaSmart-Dana-Wireless-Compact-Slim-Portable-Word-Processor-PCs-Macs-W-USB-/182378500394?hash=item2a769b112a:g:E0MAAOSw65FXqSoO
the-digital-reader.com/2016/05/09/freewrite-how-not-to-do-software/
getfreewrite.com/products/freewrite-usb-cable
mashable.com/2016/02/02/flowstate-writing-app/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

dumb
hipster
shit

shitty meme

Why's the screen so small?

it's solving a problem that doesn't exist

you can either write or not, nothing will make a difference if you are a faggot with shit ideas that can't write. There is no manual, no espiritual journey, no drugs, no machine that will change that.
This is the same as fa/g/gots complaining about a mouse sensor when there's no sensor on earth that will make them better in any game ever.

Who the fuck would pay 500 dollars for it. I could see maybe 100 dollars but thats about it.

look at this gay shit lmao

$500 for that shit?

That's pure memery if I ever saw it.

If distraction is such an issue buy an old laptop for pocket change and just use nano on the framebuffer.

Or just a pen and paper.

Or find a typewriter from somewhere. At least then you get a cool piece of mechanical engineering for your memeing.

>Phil Collins begins playing in the background
Welcome to the early 1980's

Kind of like the idea but the implementation is shit. Make an A4 sized e-ink display and I could see it being useful for people who get distracted by computers.

I bought an ancient thinkpad when I was in uni writing my thesis, wiped the desktop enviromment, used a text editor to do my writing in, printed off the PDF articles that I needed, used alpine for email and a dumbphone for calls and texts and went to live in a holiday cabin for a while and it worked amazingly well, have never been that productive before in my life.

Wouldn't it be kind of awkward typing while staring off into the distance? It'd be even worse to bend your neck down at a 90 degree angle and look at the tiny screen

Where are the arrow keys? What about page up/page down/home/end? What if I have written several pages worth of material and I want to edit something at the beginning of the document?

hjkl

> devices for adhd kiddies that procrastinate on Sup Forums and reddit
> muh productivity
If you're seriously unironically considering this shit you need to drink bleach asap

If it had a better screen (bigger and less latency) and I could install a minimal Linux distribution, or at least SSH, I'd consider it, but not for $500.

The entire point of this hipster shit is to have only word processing software and nothing else.
It probably runs Linux already, but a locked down version.

So you're supposed to hunch over this thing all day to see the screen?
Is the screen positioning adjustable?

I can get typewriters for 10$ at Goodwill why would I pay $500 for this shit?

literally a useless hipster device that they will get tired of after a week or two of playing with it

I have to commend them though, they will make bank off this thing simply because retards with too much money will buy it just to feel unique, and it's probably cheap as fuck to make.

Can I write pro-hilary and anti-trump tweets with this thing and post them immediately?
That's a deal breaker for me

The point of it is to "free" you from having to look at a display. You're not supposed to look at it

Why get this shit when you can get something like focuswriter on your pc? It does the same thing

Ah, makes sense to put it in an absolute shit position to force you to not look at it and increase your productivity.

>word processing

You get nano if you're lucky.

Also it saves to the cloud, so you need wifi to save your work.

Maybe you should do something like that again?

I don't mean that as an insult either.

website is awful, it's still loading and all I see is a very outdated looking animation that completely butchers and aesthetic aspects the actual product might have.

pricing is wrong too. I like the idea but I can build this with a raspberry pi, keyboard and monitor which all together is roughly 50 or so dollars.

product should be 129 or 99 on sale and the website needs to be updated so i can actually see it if the server takes a while to load everything

Imagine if this was marketed as a new laptop. It would be catastrophically shit in every possible way. Nobody would buy one.

Something tells me nobody is buying one already

It's a kailh blue switch keyboard with an epaper display.
What the fuck is all that extra space for?
There's literally nothing in there, you could design this thing around a raspi zero.
Why the fuck is it $500?
Why the fuck is the screen angled so low as to give you constant neck pain?

Also, there's no connectivity at all. What happens when their company inevitably goes belly up and their dumbass web service goes down?
It'll literally brick my $500 shitwriter.

Neat idea but sub-par implementation. It looks incredibly uncomfortable to use.

----------------------------------
Posted from my Freewrite

>Programming Legend

holy fucking shit, you madman

ebay.com/itm/AlphaSmart-Dana-Wireless-Compact-Slim-Portable-Word-Processor-PCs-Macs-W-USB-/182378500394?hash=item2a769b112a:g:E0MAAOSw65FXqSoO

i just saved you about 460 dollars. this even runs palm os.

>needing a 500USD meme so you can stretch your attention span past the your average 2 seconds

If you were doing something important you would focus without worrying about it

>it's solving a problem that doesn't exist
I'd agree with that for the most part, but from what I understand, a lot of writers face problems trying to write without "distraction" from most gui-based word processors. Idk, it looks like some gay ass hipster shit, but it seems to serve a legitimate function if you don't mind paying the ridiculous premium.

People are so incapable of focusing you have to spend $500 to cure it
The people who need this must be fucking brilliant.

>$500

what the fuck

I really like the idea. I was thinking of commisioning Ben Heckendorn to build me something like this a few years ago. I was going to have him make it out of an old Alphasmart since the concept is there but those keyboards were shit. Then I heard about this.

But that price, my god, I'm going to wait a bit for that to come down a few hundred dollars.

You don't even need a Pi.
A 1-2$ ESP8266 module would be enough to handle everything it does.

>Tiny screen that can't be angled up
>No scroll keys so even correcting a typo will be a pain
>Dependent on Wi-Fi
>Dependent on a web service that will shut down in two years tops

Oh and it looks like a fisher price toy

500 dollars? I'll proxy you an old wapuro for 1/4 that price.

Ignoring the flat screen, I kind of like the form factor though. If it ran windows and the screen could bend upwards I'd like it.

I wish there were more keyboard-centric PCs around. Why don't people shove internals into a keyboard like an MSX anymore

Loud mech and wifi-only, so you can't even use it in secluded places, is also a retarded combination.

It's like designed it's designed to make you the most annoying hipster at your local Starbucks.

> trying to write without "distraction" from most gui-based word processors

This is a non-problem. There are writing apps that offer a view with minimal distraction. Hell, put Word in "reader mode" with editing enabled and you have a clean full-screen page with only a tiny bar on top.

And fuck, for distraction-free writing ye olde electric typewriter is better than this device in almost every way, just OCR the pages afterwards.

He literally is. Or should I say, was.

It's NOT dependent on the web service, you can transfer files to your computer normally. The file managing system is apparently a fucking mess though.

You can use it in secluded places, you just can't get your text out of it without an internet connection.

>live in a log cabin for 2 years
>write a pulitzer prize worthy novel
>come back to civilization
>the flash chip in your FreeWrite(tm) has crapped itself
>buy a new FreeWrite(tm)
>live in a log cabin for 5 years
>write a nobel prize worthy novel
>come back to civilization
>the FreeWrite(tm) cloud service has been shut down

>you can transfer files to your computer normally

How? I don't see any communication ports.

Just buy an old X220.
It's much cheaper, lighter, and much more useful.

Absolutely fucking useless. Looks like it's a pain to navigate to pages you've already written to edit them.

You're supposed to be able to do it through USB, hopefully as a mass storage unit.

>So, is there any other way to get your documents off the machine not using wifi? Not yet. The Freewrite didn’t even come with that most basic of functionalities…the ability to plug your machine into your computer and have it appear as a mass storage device, even though this was listed as an initial feature. (I hear it’s coming in a future update which, again, when it was touted as initial functionality is unforgivable.)

DISTRACTION FREE
>The nagging. The Freewrite was created to be a distraction-free environment. It has wifi capability so that you can sync to the cloud but, obviously, having the wifi feature on all the time drains the battery. Prudent writers would turn it off while typing their draft. Prudent writers would also get incessantly nagged via a status message about the wifi being turned off. Not so distraction-free now, is it?
the-digital-reader.com/2016/05/09/freewrite-how-not-to-do-software/

I got one of those on a lark and the keyboard was terrible, and I mean like barely functioning terrible.

>no dvorak layout
dropped

> I want to edit something at the beginning of the document?

You literally can't.
It has NO EDITING CAPABILITY aside from the backspace key, by design.

But it literally has page up and down keys.

>can only see the text after I wrote a dozen words because the screen updates so slow that it can't keep up with anyone who can touch type
>see typo in first word
>have to delete everything and start again

you can only use them to scroll through a document or folder

>the-digital-reader.com/2016/05/09/freewrite-how-not-to-do-software/

Wow, I expected it to be bad but not THIS bad.

>massive delay between key presses and characters appearing
>cannot disable wi-fi without nagging
>cannot correct typos without backspacing all the way back
>cannot get your files out without using shady web services
>cannot put dates or versions on your files
>cannot rename your files
>cannot even DELETE any files, holy shit are you niggers serious

Why is it so thick? Battery? It's e-ink how much does it need

>buy/acquire old laptop for £0-10
>install FreeDOS on it
>if it already runs a DOS skip that step
>acquire literally any of the DOS word processor programs (Wordstar 5.1 is free to download now, as is MS Word 5.0)

You now have an actual word processor for your shitty writing. I hate this current "bad text editor as a minimalist word processor" trend. Command line word processors were just as fully featured as a modern version. You can even open WordPerfect files in LibreOffice.

a bunch of empty space I imagine

unfortunately I can't find teardowns of it

>literally less features than a manual typewriter.

At least you can scrawl out a mistake and write the correct words above it.

> Your drafts are automatically uploaded to our Postbox web app using (...) Evernote
> $499

Overpriced, shitty fucking proprietary software, adware and malware. I'LL PASS.

Besides, I already have an AlphaSmart Neo, I don't need this.

This thing really got me hyped when I saw it uses a mechanicL keyboard and n E-ink screen, it seems pretty large too.

Would have liked to get that for my dad(he's an author, many times writing poems on his phone which is uncomfortsble)
But 500$?
Fuck you! Wouldn't pay more than 100$ for this

Why everything interesting becoms some hipster gimmick to make money?

>back when it was known as the Hemingwrite
I wonder if they changed the name because his heirs would sue.

Do you hate your dad? Because >Why everything interesting becoms some hipster gimmick to make money?
Because it's easier to make up some hipster marketing hype than to make competent engineering and programming.

>le I want to feel the real weight/size of device
Like the meme of physically turning a page. No wonder why we are litterally stuck in stone age with all these primal backward people

The website has an animation with an exploded 3D view, but all it shows is empty space inside.

And how the fuck do you make a $500 device look worse than a $30 toddler toy?

fuck, now I really want to buy one of these and retrofit an ARM board and a higher-res LCD in it.

>site won't display any relevant information without enabling javascript

tab closed

>"""""""Free""""""""Write

>Literally the most proprietary and limited writing tool you can spend your money on

kek

>include the keyword "smart" next to device name
>sell millions of them to millennials
>how to pajeet 101

Likely, heirs are usually litigious douchebags.

Is it botnet?

I support them in this case though.

reminder that this type of shit gets handed to kids in school when they fuck up their writing hand or otherwise cannot write. this just looks like overpriced shit tho

Given the quality of the software, it's likely full of security holes, but no self-respecting bot herder would touch those with a ten foot pole.

>le i like my notebook to be thin because I have to carry it around all day long that's why I choose macbooks :^)

God I hate these pretentious faggots. The whole schtick about this device is to be "nerdy" with "le epic mechanical keys" and standing out in the crowd.

Giving these to school kids would give them PTSD.

>to correct a mistake, you have to delete all text up to that point and re-type it

hipster garbage

>getfreewrite.com/products/freewrite-usb-cable
>usb cable
>15 american dollars plus tip

I would love to have an e-ink laptop.

Before the new CAPTCHA I could easily post from my ereader, now it's a hassle. Nethack and reading still work great

>57929664
>getfreewrite.com/products/freewrite-usb-cable

It is 1.8 Meter so not even close to Apple retarded pricing.

I've been thinking about it, am becoming acutely aware lately of just how much time I waste with technology

>Virtue siginaling device
Technology is all about moving foward, not backwards. I bet even some chink mechanical keyboards are probably better built than this hipster garbage. Of course, this thing is targeted towards your average liberal arts graduate.

>kalih blue

Lmfao 500$ and you won't even get cherry mx or gateron switches

Oh wait the site says they use cherry mx brows

Literally the worst cherry switch

What if the Freewrite had Topre switches? Would it be worth $500 then?

Considering I can write a book with my hhkb and a tablet AND do everything else a tablet can...
No

They advertise: "Double your hourly word count with the Freewrite. Every element of the Freewrite is designed to help you find your flow and stay there.".
How is that supposed to happen?

No Facebook notifications

that's literally it,
for normies

You do realize that your setup is also hipster garbage AND more expensive

...

That's just for shitposting in bed m8

I actually bought the hhkb to MAKE money better at work.
In a year it made me more money than I paid for it.

>Double your hourly word count
>find your flow

Check this shit out

mashable.com/2016/02/02/flowstate-writing-app/

>No Facebook notifications

But these will still come to my phone, so what's the point?

>all this fucking memery in one image
>image is poorly compressed, blurry, and a giant resolution

Fucking phoneposters...