4 ms·

I have a freewrite traveler, I don’t like it and never use it, here’s why: It uses an eink screen, which has significant latency in comparison with lcd and oth

I have a freewrite traveler, I don’t like it and never use it, here’s why: It uses an eink screen, which has significant latency in comparison with lcd and other screens that render pixels. Won’t be an issue if latency doesn’t bother you too much, but if you are used to super fast response times in text editors, it will prove annoying. It also has no backlight. Its easy on the eyes during the day but forget about using it in dim conditions. Their source is closed and not easily extensible. They version your documents using their own propriety cloud backup, which you can then export to various services. The file manager is clunky and the UI in general, either because of eink limitations or stuff on the software side, is pretty clunky. The firmware update process is mysterious and does not really give any information to the user. The outer casing feels cheap. Try as I might, I cannot find any information on the internal storage limits of the freewrite. Overall I personally feel the unit is way overpriced at 500 dollars. Even though I dislike the traveller, I still loved the concept, and through further research discovered that KingJim, a Japanese company, makes a similar device, the Pomera DM200, only it has pretty much none of the downsides I mentioned (it uses lcd, not eink so its super responsive, to get files off the device you can use a qr code, email, or sd card) plus other features that are handy (split view, calendar that doubles as a journal, outline mode, and others). Like the freewrite, the outer casing is a bit cheap feeling but it feels sturdier and looks sleeker too. The only major downside to the pomera is that its ui is only available in Japanese (there are older models that support english but that are no longer in no production and are more expensive to acquire second hand), but even this is easy to get used to. The overall experience and software is imo leagues ahead of freewrite and it only costs around 300 instead of 500.

brandur 5y ago
Thanks for the detailed notes! Since it was announced, I was always very enticed by the Freewriter Traveler, but never pulled the trigger because despite a couple very positive reviews, I had a haunting suspicion that it wasn't quite up to the standard of quality that I would've liked to see, and moving content in and out just seemed way too painful. The Pomera DM200 looks really interesting — pretty sure I recognize this from a guy on my that had one (or something very close to it). A solution I've been playing around with a lot is the a foldable keyboard (I got this one [1]) plus an iPhone. An iPhone with an external keyboard doesn't give you Cmd + Tab, which makes multi-tasking difficult by default. In addition, it has the additional advantages of: * Leveraging a device I always have on me and which I charge every night. * If you get the right keyboard, it's full size, keeping typing non-painful. --- [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018K5EJCQ/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018K5EJCQ/
- blondin 5y ago
  well, the pomera disappointed me. kingjim, the maker, never said they were portable e-ink typewriters. they say they are digital memos. like palm back in the days. people point to them as cheaper alternatives to the freewriter traveler. but that's honestly a mistake. my biggest complaint was the keyboard. imagine writing your essays or your book on that mini-keyboard! i had so much trouble pressing on individual keys on that keyboard. i also had issues with reading the e-ink screen at night. but the keyboard alone was enough reason for giving up and selling mine.
  - brandur 5y ago
    Fair enough. I like the Pomera's look (and love the broad Japanese market of weird/unusual electronics), but ... I doubt I'd ever buy a device without a full-sized keyboard again. These netbook-style machines were pretty interesting back in the 90s and 00s, but they're practically impossible to type on, and we've got enough good alternatives nowadays that they don't feel worth it anymore.
- jfim 5y ago
  In case you're considering the Pomera devices, be aware that they use the Japanese keyboard layout, which is just different enough to be really annoying. The backspace key is smaller and there's an additional key to the left of it that doesn't exist on the US keyboard. The punctuation is at different locations for things like apostrophes and colons. The spacebar is smaller due to the IME keys. Since they're digital memos, you can't really write really long texts on them, so no long novels or anything like that (IIRC it's something like 10k characters max). But besides those drawbacks, they're nice no distraction devices. I have the DM30, it's a chonky little bugger that runs on AA batteries. There are instructions on how to switch the menus to English as well.
naravara 5y ago
I've heard there are some community projects out there to enable bluetooth keyboard support on those Remarkable tablets. That seems like the best of both worlds to me, especially since you can also move the tablet off and read it like a manuscript and mark it up with a pen. Although the new iOS version's text-reader is pretty amazing. I wonder if I can just use a real typewriter and digitize the notes from there.
satysin 5y ago
I have used a few of these devices and I am always disappointed as they feel so sluggish and lack features I had on my Psion 5mx more than twenty years ago! The Psion had a better[1] screen, excellent battery life from two AA batteries, very good physical keyboard, excellent size, basically the only thing it lacks in comparison to these modern "solutions" is wifi. Although some even advertise lack of wifi as a benefit as it means even less distraction! I mean come on you're taking the piss there imho. Things like the Freewrite Traveler are shockingly over priced and while they may be distraction free they are certainly not frustration free. [1] better in that it was a monochrome LCD not eink. Yes it wasn’t amazing but it was still more responsive than eink
totetsu 5y ago
I coveted the KingJim display every time I visited Yodobasi-camera for a while. But then I thought I'd want to install emacs on it to use org mode.. and at that point why not just by a little pocket PC..
chrismorgan 5y ago
I would note that such latency is not intrinsic to e-ink panels: I suppose Freewrite just haven’t optimised it to do proper partial updates. This can be seen in paper tablets with styli: reMarkable 1 has about 43ms of latency from stylus to screen with a fairly slow processor (no idea what Freewrite uses, it could be slower but is probably similar), which includes, and I can attest that even when you’re looking for it the gap is small, and when you’re not looking for it you’re unlikely to notice it; and reMarkable 2 cuts that down to around 24ms with a faster processor and I think newer generation of e-ink panel. (Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/r3ev13/fyi_the_remarkable_2_still_has_the_lowest_latency/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/r3ev13/fy....) As regards CPU usage, implemented sensibly, rendering text at a known size and font with primed glyph caches is vastly lighter than rendering textured strokes, so I’d imagine you could get your typing latency down even further than reMarkable’s stylus latency with a sensible pipeline.
sdze 5y ago
The remarkable for instance has an exceptional low latency for an eInk device. I enjoy using it.

brandur 5y ago

Thanks for the detailed notes! Since it was announced, I was always very enticed by the Freewriter Traveler, but never pulled the trigger because despite a couple very positive reviews, I had a haunting suspicion that it wasn't quite up to the standard of quality that I would've liked to see, and moving content in and out just seemed way too painful. The Pomera DM200 looks really interesting — pretty sure I recognize this from a guy on my that had one (or something very close to it). A solution I've been playing around with a lot is the a foldable keyboard (I got this one [1]) plus an iPhone. An iPhone with an external keyboard doesn't give you Cmd + Tab, which makes multi-tasking difficult by default. In addition, it has the additional advantages of: * Leveraging a device I always have on me and which I charge every night. * If you get the right keyboard, it's full size, keeping typing non-painful. --- [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018K5EJCQ/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018K5EJCQ/

blondin 5y ago
well, the pomera disappointed me. kingjim, the maker, never said they were portable e-ink typewriters. they say they are digital memos. like palm back in the days. people point to them as cheaper alternatives to the freewriter traveler. but that's honestly a mistake. my biggest complaint was the keyboard. imagine writing your essays or your book on that mini-keyboard! i had so much trouble pressing on individual keys on that keyboard. i also had issues with reading the e-ink screen at night. but the keyboard alone was enough reason for giving up and selling mine.
- brandur 5y ago
  Fair enough. I like the Pomera's look (and love the broad Japanese market of weird/unusual electronics), but ... I doubt I'd ever buy a device without a full-sized keyboard again. These netbook-style machines were pretty interesting back in the 90s and 00s, but they're practically impossible to type on, and we've got enough good alternatives nowadays that they don't feel worth it anymore.
jfim 5y ago
In case you're considering the Pomera devices, be aware that they use the Japanese keyboard layout, which is just different enough to be really annoying. The backspace key is smaller and there's an additional key to the left of it that doesn't exist on the US keyboard. The punctuation is at different locations for things like apostrophes and colons. The spacebar is smaller due to the IME keys. Since they're digital memos, you can't really write really long texts on them, so no long novels or anything like that (IIRC it's something like 10k characters max). But besides those drawbacks, they're nice no distraction devices. I have the DM30, it's a chonky little bugger that runs on AA batteries. There are instructions on how to switch the menus to English as well.

naravara 5y ago

I've heard there are some community projects out there to enable bluetooth keyboard support on those Remarkable tablets. That seems like the best of both worlds to me, especially since you can also move the tablet off and read it like a manuscript and mark it up with a pen. Although the new iOS version's text-reader is pretty amazing. I wonder if I can just use a real typewriter and digitize the notes from there.

satysin 5y ago

I have used a few of these devices and I am always disappointed as they feel so sluggish and lack features I had on my Psion 5mx more than twenty years ago! The Psion had a better[1] screen, excellent battery life from two AA batteries, very good physical keyboard, excellent size, basically the only thing it lacks in comparison to these modern "solutions" is wifi. Although some even advertise lack of wifi as a benefit as it means even less distraction! I mean come on you're taking the piss there imho. Things like the Freewrite Traveler are shockingly over priced and while they may be distraction free they are certainly not frustration free. [1] better in that it was a monochrome LCD not eink. Yes it wasn’t amazing but it was still more responsive than eink

totetsu 5y ago

I coveted the KingJim display every time I visited Yodobasi-camera for a while. But then I thought I'd want to install emacs on it to use org mode.. and at that point why not just by a little pocket PC..

chrismorgan 5y ago

I would note that such latency is not intrinsic to e-ink panels: I suppose Freewrite just haven’t optimised it to do proper partial updates. This can be seen in paper tablets with styli: reMarkable 1 has about 43ms of latency from stylus to screen with a fairly slow processor (no idea what Freewrite uses, it could be slower but is probably similar), which includes, and I can attest that even when you’re looking for it the gap is small, and when you’re not looking for it you’re unlikely to notice it; and reMarkable 2 cuts that down to around 24ms with a faster processor and I think newer generation of e-ink panel. (Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/r3ev13/fyi_the_remarkable_2_still_has_the_lowest_latency/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/r3ev13/fy....) As regards CPU usage, implemented sensibly, rendering text at a known size and font with primed glyph caches is vastly lighter than rendering textured strokes, so I’d imagine you could get your typing latency down even further than reMarkable’s stylus latency with a sensible pipeline.

sdze 5y ago

The remarkable for instance has an exceptional low latency for an eInk device. I enjoy using it.