Astrohaus Freewrite
It’s weird, it’s wonderful, it’s expensive, but writers will enjoy the Freewrite’s old-world charms
SCORE PRICE
S✪✪✪✪✪ from getfreewrite.com
$499 et Your Story Free, the Freewrite typewriter tells me, beneath a stylised illustration of Edgar Allen Poe. The command gives a clue to the purpose of this backwardsfacing piece of technology – a device that intentionally eschews the digital in favour of a design that emphasises clunky keys and sturdy physical levers. As I write this very review, the text appears on a small rectangular screen embedded into the typewriter, in E Ink. That makes it usable outside even in sunlight, with the promise of “weeks of battery life”, while a frontlight means it’s possible to use in the dark too.
The words I type now are automatically uploaded to my account, but – just like a typewriter – there’s no means to go back and select previous sections of this document on the Freewrite itself, save from deleting everything up to that point. Any typos and misguided paragraphs must be corrected on my laptop later.
As someone who has never written with an actual typewriter for a sustained amount of time, this rhythm is totally alien to me. Everything is flattened onto a single, linear plane, and I’m left to forge my way forward, one mechanical clunk at a time. From the physical levers to the nostalgic case design – angled towards me like a set dressing from series one of Mad Men – this machine wants me to consider a way of typing that isn’t joined at the hip to emails and messages and Spotify playlists and news and Twitter and copying and pasting.
It’s a strange experience. I feel vulnerable. As if I’m writing words that are hard to erase and without completely knowing where they’re going. My only option is to keep pushing on, or to give up. Perhaps this is why depictions of typewriters in film are full of frustrated writers, tearing off sheets of paper and tossing them into bins.
There is an elephant in the room. The Freewrite costs $499 (around £412). I’ve had to guess that number from memory, because I don’t have a tab open to search for the information, but I will correct it afterwards (I did). I also had to write it as dollars because there is no button for pound sterling. Regardless, this is a silly amount of money to spend on something that, on the surface, gives you far less than...
I stopped writing that paragraph because a colleague sent me a video on my actual computer, of a singing Japanese robot. Normally that would go unmentioned, but I feel as if I need to be honest with you. There’s an intimacy to writing like this. I’ve closed the lid of my laptop now. We are alone.
Yes, the Freewrite is ridiculously expensive for what it is. You could buy a Chromebook for less than half the price, then install apps designed to disconnect you from the internet. You could even buy a vintage typewriter on eBay for a few tenners, although you’ll need to find ink ribbons, and it may be more of a task to lug it around with you. Why would you spend that money…
“It’s easy to dismiss the Freewrite as an oddity for well-heeled posers, but writing technology doesn’t move in a straight line”
Sorry. I stopped writing that paragraph because I decided to post the video of the Japanese singing robot to Twitter. Again, I normally wouldn’t mention this. It would simply be folded into the structure of writing we’ve all become accustomed to, flitting between tasks and thoughts as they crop up. I’ve put my phone away. We are alone again.
So the Freewrite costs an absurd amount of money, and yet, and yet. There is something about this typing and this intimacy I’m feeling with the thing I’m writing. I once went to a talk by Will Self and Iain Sinclair about their dead friend, the writer, JG Ballard. It took place in a church hall, which was fitting because the pair spent most of the time bemoaning the loss of typewriters. Self in particular fetishised the pattern of writing typewriters offered, and at the time I thought: this pair of old coots and their nostalgia, pfft.
Now, I can start to get a grip on what they were saying. Writing in this manner does feel different, and it creates a different type of writing. A different way of thinking, even. One that befits the idea of a novel, perhaps, with its space for internalised thought.
It’s easy to dismiss the Freewrite as an expensive oddity, angled to nostalgic retirees and well-heeled posers, but it shows that the progress of writing technology doesn’t necessarily travel in a straight line. With its USB Type-C port and automatic cloud syncing, the Freewrite doesn’t ignore internet connectivity, but instead keeps it under tight control. It shows an alternate path, a cul-de-sac even, where typing doesn’t happen across 20 tabs.