I bought a ‘writer deck’ and I’m so disappointed

Price When Reviewed

$499

Best Prices Today: Pomera DM250 US word processor

I wrote a novel ten years ago. I’ve been trying to write a second one ever since. I started about half a dozen times, and never got much further than halfway through the first draft.

Obviously things are a lot different in 2025 than in 2015. Both for me personally and [gestures at everything]. Like a lot of you reading this, my attention span has been absolutely shattered by modern video and social media. Even when I’m not on my massive, triple-screen desktop, I’m parallel processing between work, media, and personal stuff. I often find myself playing video games and watching videos at the same time, and I know that I’m not alone — there’s a whole range of videos out there that are now designed to be “second screen content,” and I don’t just mean music with those little visualizers thrown on top of them.

In an attempt to kick myself in the ass and actually get back to fiction writing, I’ve been looking for something that will facilitate more focused, long-form text input. My first idea was a super minimal laptop. Something like ye olde netbooks, where the smaller size and limited capability would minimize my trips to YouTube or email checking. The problem is that even a cheap laptop can run a browser these days, and a handful of browser tabs is all I need to get off on a mental tangent. I needed something like netbooks used to be, designed for doing one thing at a time, and that one thing couldn’t be particularly taxing from a technical standpoint.

Foundry

A tablet plus a Bluetooth keyboard is closer. I’ve tried this before, but found it less than ideal, if only because that setup has a lot of stuff to carry and wasn’t particularly easy to use unless there was a standard chair and table around — it was hard to use in a laptop form factor. Ditto for the keyboard plus a phone; my Galaxy Fold is better for portability, but even the super-tiny Logitech Keys to Go 2 doesn’t solve the usability issues, and, if anything, my intense familiarity with my phone makes me even more likely to multitask on it than on a tablet.

I thought back to some of the devices I’ve used in the past, and those I merely admired from afar. The Sony Vaio P, a teeny, tiny netbook design that skewed a little more premium while remaining super-portable, kept popping up in my head. This 2009 design was super-portable, stylish, and its footprint was barely bigger than its keyboard thanks to a shrunken-down pointer mechanism and a super-wide screen.

It wasn’t amazing by the standards of the day, perhaps because it had a less-than-optimal combination of a premium price and low power. People wanted it to be a lot more capable than it was, especially considering that it ran Windows Vista, and perhaps that made it seem like a poor value. But in terms of form factor, it seemed retroactively perfect for my needs: laptop-shaped with a hinge for using on, well, a lap, and with a small screen that could only really handle one window at a time.

Pondering on these devices made me go even further back in my memory. I recalled that in the group writing sessions for NaNoWriMo I attended in Colorado Springs, a couple of people had unique little gadgets, bridging the gap between a full laptop and something like an old-fashioned word processor. Word processor in the hardware sense, not the software sense — essentially electronic keyboards with a tiny screen and a bit of memory for storing text files, and that was it. The spirit of these gadgets lives on in the “focused writer,” which you might have seen from Freewrite. These gadgets are interesting, and theoretically exactly what I’m looking for.

But I haven’t bought any of the Freewrite models. Something about them feels so performative to me, to say nothing of the huge price for the hardware. The purposefully tiny screens and retro embellishments don’t appeal, nor does the relatively large size — if I’m lugging around something that big I’d feel really dumb for not just using a laptop.

To summarize months of vague poking around the internet, especially on places like Reddit’s /r/writerdeck community, I found a little digital typewriter called the Pomera. More specifically, the KingJim Pomera DM250.

This thing looked like exactly what I had been craving: a tiny, portable form factor essentially the same size as a small keyboard, and a super-focused custom software setup that does anything you want to, as long as you only want to write text. The screen is a little small, and I feel like a much wider one could easily fit in there, but it makes more sense in the legacy of this device family from the Japanese design company. A previous version of the Pomera looks like an evolution of the old Palm Pilot keyboards. I imagine that at least some of the parts in this most recent model are the same, explaining the large bezels around the 7-inch LCD screen.

And yes, it is LCD, not e-ink as you might think from the photos, and is the case for the Freewrite. That gives it a little distinction. One, it’s much faster than a typical e-ink screen, which is advantageous for writing, if only because you don’t need to wait for a slow refresh for each letter to appear. It’s also a color screen, though so far the only color I’ve seen is the Word-style red squiggly lines under any word that the built-in dictionary doesn’t recognize.

Michael Crider/Foundry

It also has some downsides. The LCD screen is a little more reflective than I’d expect from something with e-ink, though with high contrast and a bright backlight, it’s not that big of a deal in regular use. The battery life is also a lot lower than some other devices in this loose category… though at 20 hours, and with easy USB-C recharging, you’re unlikely to get range anxiety unless you’re using this thing on a multi-day camping trip.

The screen isn’t the most crucial hardware component of the Pomera. In fact, I’d say for the highly specialized target audience, it might be the least important. Pride of place must go to the keyboard for something where typing and writing is the main focus. And I have to say, it could be a lot better.

Michael Crider/Foundry

For context, I’m a PCWorld’s designated mechanical keyboard nut, and I’m a big fan of ThinkPad laptops for their focus on a comfortable, practical typing experience. Obviously you’re not going to get mechanical keys in a device this small and focused on portability. But there are laptop keyboards, and then there are laptop keyboards. And the Pomera’s is much closer to a budget laptop, something like a Chromebook sold by the thousand to schools, than to a high-end ThinkPad or Surface.

In a word, it feels cheap. Not bad, per se, but nowhere near as nice as even something like Logitech’s MX Keys Mini (which is about the same size as a the keyboard here, if a little wider and thinner). I wasn’t expecting a miracle here — I don’t mind the lack of backlighting, for example, as anyone interested in buying a Pomera is almost certainly a rapid touch-typer. But the small keys and wide spacing takes some getting used to, even with my average (American AMAB-sized) hands.

The layout is great. In fact, when I build 60 percent boards for myself, I use a near-identical setup for the bottom row, preserving dedicated arrow keys on the left side. I appreciate how there’s a full-sized right Shift key, something that’s not guaranteed, especially when something is designed in a non-ANSI country.

But the full-length layout is about an inch narrower than a standard 60 percent keyboard, so you’re still going to have to get used to the slightly shrunken chiclet keys, like many tablet or phone keyboards. It’s not insurmountable, but it’s disappointing for a device so focused on text input. And your mileage may vary for how well and how quickly you’ll be able to adjust.

Michael Crider/Foundry

I also wish that the designers had included adjustable feet in the plastic case, and think they could have done so without sacrificing any size or battery capacity. I resorted to my usual adjustment for keyboards without a comfy angle option (looking at you, Keychron Q series): some little rubber feet from Amazon. It’s not an ideal solution, as it makes this thing about half an inch thicker than it needs to be, but it already fits in my little 60 percent keyboard case with my portable battery, so I think it’s a worthy sacrifice on the altar of the angle.

Again, the typing experience isn’t terrible. I’m typing up this very review on the device now, and only getting a little less than my usual (and not all that impressive) typing speed. But for a device so singularly focused on text input, and which is far less technically capable than many other things in its price range, I can’t help but find it a very disappointing.

Michael Crider/Foundry

The Pomera runs a completely custom operating system, not an Android derivative or Linux (at least not any form of Linux I recognize). And as a descendant of devices like the Alphasmart, it does feel very dated, without any touchscreen or even an option for mouse input. You open the horizontal menu with the Menu button (where the Windows/OS key is on a standard keyboard), and it only has seven items with nested tools and settings.

I won’t bore you with a breakdown of every option, but it has a bunch of basic settings you’d expect if you’re familiar with these devices from back in the 80s and 90s. Font sizes, outlines, text spacing, that sort of thing. There are only two font options, serif and sans serif, and the option for black text on white or vice versa. One thing I changed immediately was the fullscreen view — “fullscreen” being a relative term for such a small window — and the status bar that shows the current word count and time (in 24-hour clock only) can be brought back by hitting menu.

I’m most interested in just inputting a bunch of text, so the outline view doesn’t really interest me. But you can open two text documents at once in a splitscreen, with each side being VERY small, about the size of the original iPhone screen. I can see how that would be helpful if you’re revising and editing, though I think I’d prefer to do that on a full computer. I was pleased to see that you switch sides to the other text document with the familiar alt-tab command.

Michael Crider/Foundry

You might notice that there’s a full function row on the Pomera, or at least F1-F10, plus Escape on the left and Insert and Delete on the right in very natural spots. This gives you a lot of options for things like text size and backlight adjustment without diving into the menus, though I didn’t know that at first.

I had to dive into a very old-fashioned manual, frustratingly provided in PDF-only format and not included in the box. An insert for the most common keyboard shortcuts would have been appreciated, as would some basic labeling on the Function keys, as is mostly standard on laptops now. Well, I suppose that’s one of the foibles of using such a deliberately retro device. I eventually found an on-device menu that shows you the shortcuts, and allows you to modify them.

Other software tools include a rudimentary find-and-replace function, text and time markers, unicode input and customization, and a few more ways to customize the display and type experience. I was surprised to find that I could exclude certain words from the spell check function (great if you happen to be writing a genre novel) or turn the red squiggly lines on or off at will, but there’s no way to actually run a spell check function on the whole document and let you go through it to check your work.

Michael Crider/Foundry

Again, the Pomera is very much intended for WRITING, not editing. (Incidentally, you also can’t set any particular text as bold or italicized — I had to do that in editing.) And yes, this is actually a color screen, though the only hint of that I’ve seen at all is the red lines for misspelled words.

There’s one last trick up the Pomera’s sleeve: a Bluetooth connection. But I was surprised to find that this isn’t for transferring files over to the phone app, which would have been a lot easier than using Wi-Fi, since I’m often using my phone’s Wi-Fi for, well, my phone’s internet.

No, the Bluetooth is intended to let you use the Pomera as a Bluetooth keyboard for a phone or a tablet. Which is neat, and very slightly extends the functionality of the device. However, as I’ve already said, the keyboard of the Pomera isn’t that great in and of itself. The only real advantage it has over a regular travel keyboard is that the top half of the gadget works as a phone stand.

Michael Crider/Foundry

If you’re intending to write on your phone, there are easier, less bulky ways to do so, and they don’t require digging into a text-based menu. This only makes sense if you want to carry ONLY your phone and your Pomera, switching over to the former to, say, type with friends or coworkers for a lengthy conversation.

So once you’ve banged out ten or twenty thousand words of your screenplay on the Pomera, how do you get it into, say, Google Docs? Unsurprisingly, it’s not as seamless as it would be on a laptop or even a phone. But considering its limitations, the Pomera does give you a lot of options.

Email is probably easiest. The Pomera can connect to Wi-Fi networks, though it doesn’t maintain a constant connection. The idea is that you connect to the network, email yourself (or someone else?) a text file, and then switch to a more powerful device. This was tricky, requiring a lot of trial and error to get these basic attachment messages to both authenticate in my Gmail account and send to myself. There are easier ways to do it.

Michael Crider/Foundry

Like using the official app, for example, which only has 5,000 downloads on the Google Play Store right now. This lets you transfer text files to your phone… using Wi-Fi. Which is a bit of a chore, but doable. The QR code function might be faster. It’s a fascinating little tool that converts a document into QR form so the app can scan it in visually.

At first I thought this might be too limiting, because in order to get a large amount of text across it has to split it into multiple codes — a 2,500-word document needed eight separate codes, for example. But the app is surprisingly smooth at handling this.

You point your phone at the Pomera’s screen, generate the codes, then cycle through them with the arrow keys. The app can immediately tell how many codes and in what sequence it needs, and shows you in the UI if you skipped any. Those eight codes were able to get the text into the app in less than 30 seconds, even with a couple of skips. From there it was easy to get the text into another app with Android’s Share function.

Michael Crider/Foundry

There are more old-fashioned options, including manually moving (or directly writing) onto an SD card that fits into the Pomera’s open slot. This is, again, a little more complex than it seems at first, because the apparently ancient slot could not read the 128GB SD card I use in my digital camera. I had to track down an antiquated 8GB card, using far older standards, to test out this function. But it’s easily doable, and might be a more straightforward method if you have a PC with an SD card.

The least complex method was simply plugging the Pomera into a USB port. With a few button presses you can put it into a PC connection mode, at which point it essentially turns into a USB flash drive (just 1.3GB, but that should be big enough for millions and millions of words in text). There you can simply copy the text files onto your PC, and it also worked with a USB-C cable going to my Android phone.

Michael Crider/Foundry

Aesthetically, I do like the Pomera a lot. When closed it shows no logos or branding from the top. It looks a lot like a chunkier version of the Logitech Keys-to-Go 2. When open, the only logo you see is “Pomera” in subtle off-grey on the hinge. Carrying around this super-light doohickey that’s essentially a chunk of gray plastic with a small screen and a keyboard makes me feel like John Conner, whipping out his Atari palmtop in Terminator 2. (I have yet to hack into any ATMs, if you’re wondering.)

The soft-touch plastic is rather prone to fingerprints, if not so much as something like glass, but as a ThinkPad fan I’m pretty used to that. I doubt that the cheap printing on the keys will hold up more than two or three years, which is disappointing, especially when I’m used to high-quality dye sublimation or double-shot keycaps on mechanical keyboards. But again, that shouldn’t be a huge problem for anyone who’s used to touch typing, and by that time a user should be extremely comfortable with the device.

Michael Crider/Foundry

I like the Pomera. I like its focus, I like its simplicity, I like its deliberate evocation of a time from before everything from a phone to a monitor to a refrigerator was a convergence device. And I think that in the extremely limited field of modern-ish word processors, it’s probably at the head of the pack.

That said, $400 USD when I bought it, $500 now thanks to Trump’s import taxes, is a lot for a single-use device. Especially when you can find a tablet or a Chromebook that will handle everything it does and more. If you’re spending money on the Pomera, you need to be absolutely sure it’s what you want, especially considering some of its less-than-premium components like the budget keyboard.

If you’re thinking about it, I might almost suggest spending $50 or so on an old Alphasmart first. See if you like the ultra-focused experience and the limited capability. If you really connect with that, and you want something that’s easier to charge up and sync or transfer text, then you can upgrade to the Pomera DM250 or a Freewrite model. Just remember that it’s a lot like buying a treadmill — spending the money won’t actually make you do the work.

Michael Crider/Foundry

Eventually I gave up my minimalist writing quest, and just went back to my laptop (this lightweight Asus, on sale for $650) with the Wi-Fi turned off. It’s only a little more expensive, and far more capable and practical. I’ll probably sell the Pomera to another aspiring novelist…who I hope will get a lot more use out of it.