{"id":11084,"date":"2024-05-19T12:05:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T12:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11084"},"modified":"2024-05-19T12:05:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T12:05:47","slug":"freewrite-alpha-review-for-people-who-just-want-to-get-stuff-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11084","title":{"rendered":"Freewrite Alpha Review: For People Who Just Want to Get Stuff Done"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Four blank lines<\/span> and a cursor. After getting through the setup pleasantries, that’s all you’re left with when you start a new draft on the Freewrite Alpha.<\/p>\n

No spell check, no AI-powered notes on your grammar, and most certainly no other browser tabs to distract you from the ultimate goal of getting words down on the page.<\/p>\n

Instead, Freewrite has taken its already distraction-free writing<\/a> experience and shrunk the price tag some by cutting the Alpha’s screen down to almost nothing.<\/p>\n

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I might not be a novelist, but between news posts and reviews, I write somewhere in the region of 20,000 words a week. So, I thought, what better way to test a writing machine than to use it exclusively for a full week<\/em>, to see how it holds up to the rigors of the online journalist’s grind?<\/p>\n

Freewrite, in fairness to it, wouldn’t claim that this is the ideal plan for the Alpha\u2014it’s a writer’s tool, sure, but it seems fairly clearly aimed at longer-term projects, on a grander scale. We’re talking novels, memoirs, manifestos.<\/p>\n

Still, with cloud-storage syncing, I could have the Alpha immediately upload anything I write to Google Drive<\/a> (or Dropbox<\/a>, OneDrive, Evernote<\/a>, or just its proprietary system called Postbox), so if I placed it on a desk in front of a computer monitor that I’d use to send drafts through to editors, there was nothing technically standing in my way.<\/p>\n

So, one work week later, here I am, impressed by how the Alpha held up, but also wishing I were<\/em> a novelist, since this device would so clearly suit that calling.<\/p>\n

Writing Reformed<\/h2>\n

The Alpha is a simple plastic slab, with a small kickstand on the back that can’t be adjusted, and a mechanical keyboard on the front. It has a red power button, a few function keys on that keyboard, and a four-line LCD display.<\/p>\n

It’s a word processor in the old-school 1980s sense of the word, capable of storing a large stash of drafts and syncing them over Wi-Fi when you’re connected.<\/p>\n

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