I couldn’t use my Traveler much due to moving, but I absolutely loved it. It’s small, portable but still comfortable to use. I wish there was backlight display because the screen seems to be very dark without the direct sun light. I purchased a little lamp from Walmart and it helped a lot.

The Traveler is fine but it is hard to write a review of it when I have not received the sleeve or tote ag that I bought with it. Although that is nothing to do with the machine itself, which works fine, I can't in all honesty write a review for new customers when I have not been supplied with all the goods that I have paid for.

In December 2020 I was done just reading the reviews and watching the videos. I finally decided I wanted to purchase a Freewrite. I ultimately went for the Freewrite Traveler and it has turned out to be a great purchase. The videos do not lie. I previously did all my writing using pen and paper. I now write all my drafts using my Freewrite Traveler. The device is so easy to just grab and take with me. The battery life is perfect. With the Freewrite Traveler I have added significant time to my daily writing. It started with 15 minutes and now I am up to 30 minutes. I am really enjoying it and recommend it to anyone wanting to just focus on their writing.

Frankly, when I was considering buying the Freewrite a month ago I would not have believed any review that told me the truth about how good the Freewrite would be for drafting my book. But now that I have it and have used it for a few weeks, I have DATA (I track my daily words written); since I started using the Freewrite regularly, my daily words written have DOUBLED. Yes, DOUBLED. No exaggeration—if anything I'm underselling it. I wrote over 18000 words last week. I was barely getting 1500 a day on a good day before that.

The thing you have to know about the Freewrite is that this is not a one-step process to finishing your book. I am still going to need to heavily revise and edit on the computer when all is said and done, because the Freewrite is not built for that sort of work. Moreover, those 18000 words I wrote in one week are ROUGH. But crucially, they didn't exist before, and now they do! And I don't think they're much rougher at all than what I was writing on my laptop previously.

The difference between the laptop and the Freewrite is FOCUS. The Freewrite, because the interface is made for single-tasking, and the controls make it quite inconvenient to go back and edit what you have already put down, has made it possible for me to consistently move FORWARD in my writing like never before.

Like you, I read the reviews before buying and was skeptical of getting something this costly when I "already have a computer." Trust me writing on this thing is not like writing in a word processor. It's not a replacement for the computer, but a supplement to it. It will help you generate the words, sentences, and paragraphs that you will later organize and edit in your computer's word processor. It is very much like a typewriter. I'm a Millenial so I didn't realize what that meant until I started to do it. Now I can't imagine ever going back.

Don't get me wrong, the product has downsides. Sync straight up doesn't work on public WiFi networks like the one in my favorite local coffee shop (this is easily overcome in my experience by using the included USB to connect to the computer and get your drafts off by copy-paste, or by simply not connecting to public wifi in the first place and sycning when I get home). The plastic exterior, in just a few weeks in my backpack, is nicked and scratched like you wouldn't believe. And I might be going blind from squinting so hard at the tiny screen.

AND YET. This product has so completely and positively changed my writing life that none of those downsides really matter. If you need to focus on moving a big writing project FORWARD in its early drafting phase, this is the tool you want. Period.

P.S. The thing I have found really helpful as a complement to the Freewrite is the "Sprint" writing approach. For me, I set a target of at least 10 sprints per day. Each is a 15 minute period (I set a phone timer) during which I must write, no stopping, no interruptions. The Freewrite, obviously, minimizes interruptions and reins in wandering attention. If you're still picking up your phone mid-sprint (I still do, all the time), well, congrats, you're human! But if you're using this kind of system, the Freewrite at least makes it LESS likely that you'll find yourself suddenly staring at Youtube or Twitter, wondering where your day has gone.

I use it for drafting stories and journaling. As someone who edits at work and writes at home, I find the Traveler extremely useful for decreasing my time spent in front of a computer screen, as well as increasing my productivity by keeping me away from the distractions on the internet. Thank you, Astrohaus, for a wonderful product!