Hemingway also said: "Man cannot be defeated. After he's destroyed, you must still pay licensing fees to use his name, thus increasing the price of your product."
This is the kind of thing where you post up at your local coffee shop, pull out your tastefully worn briefcase and fashionably patinaed Freewrite, so you can silently shout "I AM A WRITER!"
There's definitely a market for it (unfortunately...) so, meh one would be stupid not to profit of said market even if it only ends up paying yourself for living cool one year
silently shouting who you are (or who you desperately want to be) is so cool though! lol how else are we supposed to spot our tribes? Car window stickers? tacky
It absolutely is, except that the Raspberry hobbyists realised ages ago that e-ink refresh rates (if you can call them that) make for a really shite experience when you're typing.
@@FranzKafkaRockOpera With the right drivers you can do partial refresh only at the cursor which is a lot faster but it's still not a great use for e-ink
@@FranzKafkaRockOpera e-ink refresh rates have become better in recent devices but it would still be only half the cost to one of the best e-readers with a mechanical keyboard attached to it
Not JUST a Kindle with a keyboard, a SLOW Kindle with a keyboard. My old 3rd gen Kindle starts up faster than that, and with a custom firmware can do all this faster from off than this. As it is, it's so BAD for it's purpose that it's kinda a joke in it's own right. Worse, you can make something just, flat out better with a Pi Zero for 1/5th the price of this. This is just... trash.
@@KiraSlith Even Zero would be kinda overkill you potentially could use Pico or Arduino nano.And if someone's mad lad enough maybe AtTiny would do the job with additional circuits but idk if this additional circuitry would kill difference in price between nano and attiny.
Kinda feels like, when typing is LITERALLY the whole point of the device, the screen shouldn't be absolute shite at keeping up with your typing. That's, like, the whole point of it, isn't it?
Agreed. Like if they put some more effort into getting the actual typing experience down and more comfortable, then I would be all about this. Kind of a shame, really.
Yeah that guy has no idea wtf he's talking about. Typewriters don't have that bad of a delay. E ink screens for writing is the worst, it's not the same as a typewriter. I know cuz I have one. A 1947 royal quiet deluxe. As you soon you press the key, the letter slaps on there, then you move on to the next letter. You don't have to wait a sec for the device to catch up.
@@anthonyt219 When talking about delay for the typewriter I am talking about when you press the key and then the bar goes down and then back up. You can't type another key until the bar comes back up I'm not sure what the limit is and maybe I have only used a terrible typewriter it was like 25 years ago when I worked part time at a local bank to address envelopes. Didn't seem to want to let you go faster than 30-40 wpm. I'm sure there are nicer typewriters like the one you mentioned but in my experience, it was very slow compared to a keyboard on a computer.
True. I look at the screen while typing and having everything showing up with a delay is massively disorienting. On a related side-note: I don't consider 30 FPS to be enough for a smooth gaming experience, that tiny bit of delay between my fingers and what's on screen, is disorienting already.
A Sharp Memory LCD (the same display as the Panic Playdate) would be a much better choice. Very low power usage and daylight readable, but with a normal refresh rate. This thing is already horrifyingly overpriced (it's the same price as a brand new M1 MacBook Air + AirPods with an education discount), so the extra cost wouldn't be a very big deal.
Especially when you could just buy a damn pen, have a complete random access to the paper to do links, annotation, color, non-destructive erasure, for $900 less... At this price (2$ for paper + pen), you can accept the tiring writing process and the difficult transfer out.
Seeing James and Riley in the shot together simply looking at the product bouncing ideas off each other has a great vibe to it, no need for quips, just banter.
this is what I hate about the e-paper holdings coorporation. I want things like this to exist, and in a world of innovators and china, somebody would get a nice competitive market for weird e-paper shit for work purposes to save all of our eyes. Unfortunately, e-paper is so locked down that all we have is expensive garbage like this
I remember a device from my school in the early 2000s that was essentially a keyboard with a cheap1-2 line side scrolling lcd screen that may have been called an Alphasmart. It didn’t have the same battery life, wireless functionality or online app integration, but nothing really did then, it just output it to a word file or notepad over a usb cable type now associated mostly with printers. Since it supported multiple files and users, and was sold to schools it probably also cost a similar amount to this product.
considering that alphasmart failed in 2013... this is an extremely niche product... if you really want it you will pay for it. i would buy an alphasmart from government surplus then buy this.
even 150bucks is too much for this considering there are literally chromebooks at that price which are computers and dont have half an hour of delay betwen pressing a button and something actualy happening
If I wanted a display to do typing on, and still wanted that 'no eye-strain' feature, I would much rather go for a large passive-matrix LCD screen similar to the ones in gameboys (called STN screens) than use e-ink. STN screens have much less latency than e-ink, and still provide little to no eye-strain because it relies on the reflection of external light, without a backlight. Sure, I'd use e-ink for just reading, but not for typing, or anything that requires relatively fast feedback. Edit: fixed typos
This particular product has a shitty, outdated e-ink display. There are e-ink displays out there with firmware additions like A2 mode etc that make the display really quite responsive but somewhat blurrier when needed, and then slower but clearer when the image is still. There's no excuse for any company to release a product at this very high price point and not manage to even optimize their firmware, when other companies have managed to do it at a fraction of the price (although not in modern-typewriter-like devices, sadly)
the fascination with E-Ink is misplaced in this one. Your suggestion would be great. And even if the battery life is shorter, hey that would still could easily pass the 1 week mark, or you know, with how lightweight the device really is, put more battery in them? This is pointless product at marked up price.
For distraction free typing experience, I’d rather buy old low-end MacBook Air or retina MacBook Pro and remove its wifi-bluetooth card and break the card for extra safety. And for the ultimate distraction free experience, use something like hot glue to make all the ports (except charging) useless. With older MacBook Pro you could even install 2nd drive there for backups.
I may be alone on this, but the screen latency could actually be a good thing for someone like me. One of the biggest distractions I face when writing is the compulsion to proof my writing as I'm typing. A delay that forces me to just hammer out a rough draft, and edit later could really help.
@@lvl5monk297 Or just go to a park or something instead of Starbucks like everyone else. But honestly at that point it's time to talk to someone about internet addiction lol.
@@jubuttib oh yeah for sure! Totally agree. I do have a traveler and I love it but I agree even that is overpriced. But when I looked at the price tag of this version I was like 😐
"Is there an e-ink screen that doesn't do this?" YES. It's attached do the ReMarkable 2, a device that's even been tested on ShortCircuit. C'mon, James!
Distractions from my writing experience, is from outside the device being used to write on. Sounds, phone, tv if it’s on, other people around, and just my brain. This is an incredibly niche product.
The niche being people who, subconsciously or not, don't intend to write anything at all. If your last option is buying a $900 implement, then maybe you're not cut out for writing in the first place.
9:00 the hammer moves with the key, and touches the paper when you reach the end of key travel. So there's no delay, it's as fast as you and since it "registers the press" at the end of the key is basically the same of a standard keyboard (other than the fact that the travel is generally longer)
After researching myself, I realized that this video misrepresented Freewrite products quite a lot with expensive special edition so...thanks for introducing, thumb down for lack of research.
It would probably run way better. Someone did do that though. The biggest difficulty was the lack of drop-in e-ink screens, guy had to adapt a replacement screen for a Kindle or something to work with the Pi.
@@tituslafrombois1164 Is there any downside to using an LCD screen instead? Like, say someone liked the idea of the Freewrite, didn't want to pay $500 - $1000, and didn't mind using an LCD instead of an e-ink screen. Is there any huge drawback to not using the e-ink screen?
@@llamacannon1714 I find that very hard to believe, since the cost of a mechanical keyboard and a rhassberry pi (with no screen or battery) is already over that. Where is the cost savings going to come from?
... just buy a used Alphasmart Neo 2. It's $80 used and does all that without a stupid eInk display. You're not going to get a new device for cheap because the bulk of the cost is in the injection molded parts and the overhead of small production runs.
Yeah, and paid 600USD for basically Arduino level computing capabilities, Ghosting fiesta E-Ink display, and 50 bucks worth of keyboard component. Even if the screen is expensive, it is misplacedly expensive. Going with something like matrix LCD like what Gameboy use would be better for latency and ghosting issue, not to mention way, way cheaper. No, I could probably make something very similar to this with 150 worth of electronics, and better screen to boot. Raspberry Pi Zero + 35 buck mechanical keyboard, and 50 bucks cheap lcd screen. Online sync? yeah, that's easy nowadays. Distraction free? I could just make the OS to only boot some iteration of Nano or Vi/Vim and there we go, distraction free writing. Some shell scripting for sync with google drive and we're gold.
@@antoniius1 people have already done it. Pomera has a $200 e-ink writer. A guy built a Raspberry Pi and e-ink typewriter in a box. In the 80s and 90s you could buy pocket sized word processors for very cheap, they were quite common and can be found used online.
As a novelist so many writers I've seen swear by these to hammer out their drafts. It's not my cup of tea but I've thought about it a bunch because distraction free is tempting.
there are these weird tools like this and the CPEN that are stupid expensive, but they are great for their niche and you can't truly replicate it with other things. I read so much better with a CPEN that Its worth every penny (I bought one used for $160, MSRP is $300)
@@NigelMelanisticSmith Yeah tbh the lag alone would be a total dealbreaker in the universe where I just CANNOT think of anything better to do with $900 lol But in seriousness, I *GET* it.I get how each design decision was arrived at, I just don't think anyone really stepped back and went "what the fuck is this thing, who is it for"
@@stitchfinger7678 personally, I could use it since I get eye strain from looking at traditional monitors for too long. But there's already a market for expensive e-ink work gadgets, and this product doesn't do anything new enough, doesn't do anything well enough, and certainly isn't cheap enough to beat competing options imo
@@NigelMelanisticSmith I got a Boox brand E-Ink Android device and a Bluetooth keyboard. Although, reading is much nicer on it, writing is about the same or worse as a display. It isn't actually distractions that keep me from writing... And that likely isn't what is keeping wannabe authors from writing either (although some may claim that).
I have wanted one ever since I discovered it existed 3 years ago. I have watched so many reviews. Strangely enough, 3 years ago, I was looking for reviews of another product and came across Linus's scathing review of that product. A mechanical typewriter. When I googled similar products, I found the Freewrite. Now that I have sold both my kidneys, I intended to purchase the 3rd edition in the sale. Yes, I am a writer. This signature edition is currently 685 UK Sterling. As much as it looks good, I probably will not be buying this version.
You need to mod it! It would sound closer to a real typewrite with some clickies that click both ways and some mean springs. The topper needs to be metal caps or those obnoxious "steampunk" typewriter styled top only keys. I am joking more than serious so maybe don't. And I wouldn't dare actually request you burn $1k on this nightmare.
@@rallyfeind don't worry, wait six months and someone will realise they've got one of these gathering dust under a desk somewhere and be happy to send it in, after that its only a set of box navy's and some thicc abs double shots away from being only mostly garbage
The word Riley is looking for is "Word Processor" when talking about a modern type writer. They're not a new idea, this one is just a fancy sell on the idea with wifi and an e-ink display. I've built a couple word processers using custom designed case/keyboard running to a raspi and built in display. You don't need a lot of power when it boots straight into Vim or Ghostwriter/Typora for a GUI oriented approach. I've tried LCD and OLED panels, haven't had good luck with e-ink yet on anything but the camera I built using it as a settings display.
My problem with these "simple just write" devices for creative writing is that they forgot the next step after writing, ie proof reading and editing. Imagine trying to edit something longer than a short story in that device.
Except that isn't the intention, its largely aimed at drafting, just getting the thoughts down on the page and then editing after (most likely on a second device)
Found and old one of these at the dump a few years ago. It's pretty much only useful as a toy. We modded it to print off whatever was on the screen on a receipt printer when you pressed "send" so that was fun.
tbh a little thermal printer attachment + a lower latency screen might make it worth 900 freedom eagles and make it actually functional as a typewriter.
you found an alphasmart. most likely, not this. there are 2 entirely different things... though this is an modern 1950's interpretation of that device.
I was interested in the kickstarter for this, but reading about cheaper alternatives convinced me to buy an old Alphasmart Neo to achieve mostly the same thing. It really helped me get through grad school.
I had one in special ed in high school and still have fond memories of it. This seems like a very expensive reskin of it. The keyboard is a slight upgrade, but the screen is effectively the same, which is crazy for today's standards. It's even got the same delay between typing and the letters appearing.
I just want a display that does this. I love my own keyboard. I wish I could just plug it into a display. Seems like that would be much cheaper and just as portable.
Was just wracking my brain about what the device was called thank you! I was allowed one when I went to secondary school because I couldn't hand write well.
I have three words for you- TRS-80 Model 100. Radio Shack had the distraction free portable writing experience figured out back in 1983! It was smaller with a delay free screen! For straight up typing it would probably work just fine 38 years later. Ok, it didn't have wifi, but you could still transmit your documents over a 300 baud modem! Ha!
I am a professional writer and I would throw this thing against a wall in like 10 seconds. That lag would kill me, plus I just need to see a bit more of my writing as I'm going. But then I don't actually have that kind of trouble with getting distracted by the internet since I usually have a deadline.
I like the concept. I think 2.0 should have a screen that flips up and swivels to be an 8.5x11 sheet of paper size e-ink display. That would kind-of simulate paper coming out of the typewriter
So... you CAN make e-ink screens that update with a much faster refresh, especially in small areas (like the next character) - it's possible to play passable video on an e-ink screen. It's just... this stuff requires some really complicated designs in the display drivers, and none of e-ink's documentation for using their media doesn't tell you how (it's not an intended use case for it.)
@@tompitter930 EXACTLY. This is one of the most expensive e-ink devices out there and yet it has an outdated screen with zero effort put into optimizing its firmware. Genuinely terrible. The fact that people are judging e-ink as a technology based on terribly executed products like this one saddens me. E-ink as a technology definitely deserves a lot more love than it was given whichever incompetent intern designed this.
@@falconJB This specific product are for people with a pit of money but needing a product that offers a distraction free solution to typing is not just for "rich" people
I have one of the freewrite 2nd gen. I love it and it does help typing. I noticed there is a rhythm for typing that alleviates the extremely problematic delay between keystrokes and the letter showing up on the screen. It slows you down just a tad and really forces you to imagine what you are typing a little more. BUT I'm not defending the atrocious delay and at first it was a deal breaker from me. I rendered it unusable for a while. But then tried again and just forced myself to slow down. I'm making excuses though. I paid 450 I believe or 500 because there was a sale earlier this year.
@@ribbsco2307 Correct. Plus, why should a minor lag matter unless you're a hunt and peck typist who needs to actually see what they type, instead of touch typists who don't need such. This is for churning our DRAFTS, not fine-tuned editing.
I wish somebody would invest millions in e-ink R&D and develop a 30~60fps e-ink screen. Just imagine phones that don't need charging once a week, monitors that don't cause eye fatigue... that'll be the dream.
As for phones: look into Hisense A5 CC and Hisense A7 CC. As for displays: Dasung makes a nice 25" one. Neither of them are quite anywhere near 30fps yet, but certainly both are a fuckton better than the piece of garbage they lazily slapped on the Freewrite. The Freewrite display looks like they put absolutely zero effort into optimizing its firmware, despite the fact this would be easier for them than for either of the two companies mentioned earlier since their device has such a very specific use-case so they don't have to worry about optimizing it for anything other than just putting text on the screen more quickly.
The Traveler makes more sense to me overall. I did look at it, but it's too expensive too. It's hard to justify because there are so many distraction free software alternatives for writers already. Tho I understand that the main idea is that if you cannot see the precedent paragraph (or it takes time to go back and it's frustrating to do), you won't go back and edit at all. As for me, I do my first drafts in notebooks using a fountain pen to avoid wrist pain for long writing sessions. I cannot go back and edit, and I can just cross out words and continue when I make mistakes. (I used to edit way too much when drafting back when I did all the steps on my laptop.) I think this product is for professional writers, not for people who write as a hobby. It's too expensive considering even the "cheap" versions are the price of a Chromebook.
This instantly reminds of my old AlphaSmart Neo in its intent and look. Hell, the Neo even had the same delay between typing and the letters appearing.
"Ultimate Writer" is an open source project using a Raspberry Pi and e-ink display for a good comparison. They stated the e-ink by default can only refresh every 3 seconds, However by altering how it refreshes a partial refresh within 0.3s was possible. I'd say what's done in the video is likely similar to that. Maybe it's something you just get used to? If it's acceptable enough to make a full DIY project then there must be a lot of people who aren't overly bothered by it
And as a mechanical typewriter user, no, once you hit the key, the type bar, that's the hammer, it's instantly printed and on the paper, especially if it's an electric type bar, that's a mechanical typewriter you plug in. I have a SCM Electra 110, and if I turn the Copy up to setting 10, this is a rate at how hard and fast the type bar has to strike the Platen that's the big roller, so that the imprint when doing carbon copies, or stencils which we don't use anymore, will be able to print through 10 freaking pages!!! So, the Electra 110 on copy setting 10 is so quick and hard there have been cases of it being able to break people's fingers, and hands, if it's accidentally in the way, that's certainly no delay there. ❤ As it is, mechanical typewriters, I've one I have to set the touch control to Heavy so it slows the type bar down some so it won't shoot through the ribbon and punch a whole through it or the paper I'm writing on. Lol same kind of delay!!! NOPE!!! lol, God, that was funny, you silly Millennials, too funny.
So as someone who's built some very fun display tech -- you could get basically the same functionality with a transparent LCD panel over an eInk display. The LCD panel updates fast; the eInk is used when you stop typing (e.g. if they detect your hands are off the keyboard). You end up with a very responsive display that's very low-power while it's not being actively updated. There is a bit of a noticeable flicker with my setup because the pixels look slightly different, but I also hand-bodged it together out of spare parts, and I'm sure a proper factory could do it better. It also doesn't look *quite* as nice as plain eInk, but again, I bodged mine together. A factory-made one would be better. (It still doesn't need a backlight though! The reflectivity of the eInk basically functions as one, and it still looks mostly paperlike under sunlight.) The downside, ofc, is that you don't get *as much* power savings as a pure eInk display, and you risk some lag if your detection of "about to start" is off -- but it's still very neat tech.
As someone who writes creatively the idea that you don't have to do research as you're writing is silly. I've gone on internet deep dives searching into the history of doorknobs before (they're surprisingly modern btw)...which is why a computer is still the optimal writing accessory: you can write, edit and research all on the same machine. It also should be noted that I am more of a Faulkner/ Cormac McCarthy fan, rather than a Hemingway fan.
Full screen editor and do not disturb mode on a laptop which has a very comfortable keyboard and preferably a 3:2 screen. That's about it ... distraction free writing, right there for you.
When I was in middle and high school (1995ish-2001) I used a word processing device called an alphasmart that this hemingway freewrite really reminds me of. it was a word processor designed specifically for education, it used a reflective non-backlit multi-line low-resolution LCD to save power and lasted MONTHS of active use. it didn't have any networking, but it did allow you to store up to 8 active documents which it kept in ram. the device was STUPID fast (because it was just a word processor), and it emulated a keyboard to get stuff to a computer. you'd plug it in (first via ps/2 or mac adb, later generations of alphasmart got usb hid), you'd hit the send key, and it would send the buffer of the active document character by character into whatever computer you hooked it up to for further editing, finalization, and either printing, e-mailing, or storing on the computer you plugged it into. I had major handwriting trouble when I was younger and I would do all of my classwork and homework via this device which I think cost about $100. it was super durable, and ran on a set of AAA batteries. it was FANTASTIC for distraction-free writing and because it didn't have any networking on it, I was allowed to use it for tests/quizzes as well in many cases (anywhere you'd normally use long-form handwriting at school) - in those cases teachers would occasionally ask to inspect the current document memory to make sure that I didn't have any answers or documentation saved). - you could also dump plain text INTO the document buffer FROM the computer. I remember each morning dumping the latest slashdot and arstechnica articles to the buffers before school each morning and reading them on my way there / in study halls (again, this was before smartphones or even laptops were commonplace. there WERE laptops, but they were expensive, slow, and displays and battery lifetimes were awful so they weren't really an option for a poor kid like me.)
less eye strain, which is important when you're trying to skim what you typed on a 4inch display... but yeah for this price, an active display that can keep up with typing would have been the better choice, but lets be honest, this is targeted at niche buyers, not users
Fully prepared for @MrMobile to make a video about this telling us how much he loves it, but can’t recommend it to anyone to use, but he’ll use it every day because it fits his “hipster” narrative.
Good point about the research writing. Those, who write research papers often use citation managers (Mendely, Endnote, Zotero) to automatically insert references exactly as a way to reduce distraction.
