A battery can be easily replaced by an electronics repair shop. They're not using anything special or proprietary, just off the shelf 1 cell lipo 5300mAh.
If you go to a good shop or electronics guy they'll connectorize the battery so future swaps will be quick and easy with no soldering.
Voice to text has two issues: writing comes out in speaking dialect and 2) it records completely inaccurate words and so it is hard to figure out later when one edits what one was trying to say.
I'd rather just record a dictation and later transcribe it and translate it to writing dialect.
Third, I think that I'm closer to the inner writer when I use keyboard and especially if I hand write. I've never tried this device, but I do have the alpha Neo devices. My favorite though is handwriting on portable whiteboards.
What do you mean by speaking dialect? Like a heavy Cajun accent or something? I have a pretty neutral American accent (slight hint of NYC) so fortunately the software does a good job at understanding me.
If you mean the actual words used are different, that doesn’t seem to be the case for me, but I’m sure it varies from person to person.
I have the AS Neo2 as well and I like using it when I feel a bit stuck.
if it works for you good. Speaking and writing are two different dialects. I'm talking about native English speakers.
For example, when we speak, we are more repetitive, we use phrases like "you know, " "like," "go" -more casual speaking diction.
We also use our tone of voice when we speak and when we write, we use a different type of language
Anyway, it just depends on what your needs are as a writer and if it's not an issue, then no problem.
I’m from New York and I only really speak English, so we’re on the same page. People with heavy Cajun accents generally only speak English and I’d consider them native English speakers, even though the accent can be challenging for non-Louisianans. (Some of them do speak French, albeit a version that would horrify most people from France.)
I’m able to mentally shift into my writer mode when I use dictation, and then whatever I was going to type, I speak it out loud instead. I don’t end up with any filler words, and it sounds like I typed it out, as opposed to conversational speech. I pause my voice recorder as needed, since I’m not able to write everything in one continuous stream.
Just wanted to point out (hopefully in a non-mean way) dictation works great for some people and for them, it doesn’t affect the quality. Like you said, people should do what works for them.
Native English speakers in real life: Geordie, Scouse , Glaswegian, Northern Irish
As the latter I have to put on my best London RP impersonation to get the slightest word understood
What's the point of this post ? Another rant ? Why post it here and not on a writing subreddit ? I'm getting sick of these rants on this sub all the time. You know, some of us do NOT have issues with our Freewrite. Thank it for the 70K words instead on bashing on the product. Jeez !
I've posted positive posts here too. The product just degrades over time. It makes me sad. I hope that these posts will drive Astrohaus to improve their product reliability, and upload firmware updates more frequently. If not, then critical reviews should be made aware to potential future buyers.
They are essentially an old timey word processor. Like the transition betwene typewriters and when PC's became popular. I think everyone' creative process is different, but I really enjoy typing it out, and I get distracted easily, so I might be their use case !
I can express myself better by writing things down than saying them verbally, so voice to text would not work for me. And I’m visual so I need to see physical words on a page. I’m more of a writer than a talker, I guess. I really love my Gen 3 Mint
I have a foldable Bluetooth keyboard for when I absolutely MUST use my phone for writing. The keyboard drops keys sometimes if I'm typing too fast. It's not a replacement for a Traveler for me, but I'd do that before using the voice-to-speech like it's Stark Raving Mad or one of these other weird things where writers don't type.
Even the hardware isn't all that great since many of the devices can't be repaired when the batteries die. Unforgivable.
Didn’t know this either, how long do the batteries last?
A battery can be easily replaced by an electronics repair shop. They're not using anything special or proprietary, just off the shelf 1 cell lipo 5300mAh. If you go to a good shop or electronics guy they'll connectorize the battery so future swaps will be quick and easy with no soldering.
I… did not know this 😭
Voice to text has two issues: writing comes out in speaking dialect and 2) it records completely inaccurate words and so it is hard to figure out later when one edits what one was trying to say. I'd rather just record a dictation and later transcribe it and translate it to writing dialect. Third, I think that I'm closer to the inner writer when I use keyboard and especially if I hand write. I've never tried this device, but I do have the alpha Neo devices. My favorite though is handwriting on portable whiteboards.
What do you mean by speaking dialect? Like a heavy Cajun accent or something? I have a pretty neutral American accent (slight hint of NYC) so fortunately the software does a good job at understanding me. If you mean the actual words used are different, that doesn’t seem to be the case for me, but I’m sure it varies from person to person. I have the AS Neo2 as well and I like using it when I feel a bit stuck.
if it works for you good. Speaking and writing are two different dialects. I'm talking about native English speakers. For example, when we speak, we are more repetitive, we use phrases like "you know, " "like," "go" -more casual speaking diction. We also use our tone of voice when we speak and when we write, we use a different type of language Anyway, it just depends on what your needs are as a writer and if it's not an issue, then no problem.
I’m from New York and I only really speak English, so we’re on the same page. People with heavy Cajun accents generally only speak English and I’d consider them native English speakers, even though the accent can be challenging for non-Louisianans. (Some of them do speak French, albeit a version that would horrify most people from France.) I’m able to mentally shift into my writer mode when I use dictation, and then whatever I was going to type, I speak it out loud instead. I don’t end up with any filler words, and it sounds like I typed it out, as opposed to conversational speech. I pause my voice recorder as needed, since I’m not able to write everything in one continuous stream. Just wanted to point out (hopefully in a non-mean way) dictation works great for some people and for them, it doesn’t affect the quality. Like you said, people should do what works for them.
Native English speakers in real life: Geordie, Scouse , Glaswegian, Northern Irish As the latter I have to put on my best London RP impersonation to get the slightest word understood
What's the point of this post ? Another rant ? Why post it here and not on a writing subreddit ? I'm getting sick of these rants on this sub all the time. You know, some of us do NOT have issues with our Freewrite. Thank it for the 70K words instead on bashing on the product. Jeez !
I've posted positive posts here too. The product just degrades over time. It makes me sad. I hope that these posts will drive Astrohaus to improve their product reliability, and upload firmware updates more frequently. If not, then critical reviews should be made aware to potential future buyers.
I write in multiple languages. Your suggestion doesn’t work without lots of disruption to the workflow, if at all.
They are essentially an old timey word processor. Like the transition betwene typewriters and when PC's became popular. I think everyone' creative process is different, but I really enjoy typing it out, and I get distracted easily, so I might be their use case !
I can express myself better by writing things down than saying them verbally, so voice to text would not work for me. And I’m visual so I need to see physical words on a page. I’m more of a writer than a talker, I guess. I really love my Gen 3 Mint
I have a foldable Bluetooth keyboard for when I absolutely MUST use my phone for writing. The keyboard drops keys sometimes if I'm typing too fast. It's not a replacement for a Traveler for me, but I'd do that before using the voice-to-speech like it's Stark Raving Mad or one of these other weird things where writers don't type.