The Freewrite is not my type – rabble.ca

Wayne MacPhail on rabble.ca:

“Look at me, I am an artisan so devoted to my craft that I will spend $750 on an ugly, heavy near-useless device, with a shitty little screen.”

Guess he’s not a fan of the Freewrite. I get it. It is a little twee. I certainly don’t plan to use it at a coffee shop, either.

But I sure do love writing on it.

I actually own an AlphaSmart and I hate it. I don’t like the keyboard, the screen, or needing to hook it up to my computer to get files from it. The AlphaSmart may seem at first glance to be a nifty and inexpensive alternative to the Freewrite, but since I love the Freewrite and hate the AlphaSmart I can’t see it.

I own Ulysses and Writeroom and who knows how many other so-called “distraction free” apps. The Freewrite trumps them all because I’m not just a keypress away from Twitter or whatever. Sure, I can find ways of avoiding that, but I don’t. With the Freewrite I just make sure to leave my phone on the other side of the room. It still beckons me, but I’m lazy, so there it stays.

Another quibble, as far as I can tell, the Freewrite costs $499 (as of today) not $750 as stated by Mr. MacPhail. That’s a significant difference. Still not a cheap device, but we should at least know precisely what we’re complaining about.

So sure, I can understand why someone might snicker at the idea or even the implementation of the Freewrite. I Kickstarted one on a whim, and doubted myself during the the long wait between the campaign and delivery, but it turns out I love it.