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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 coup

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.

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.