Reviews are wildly polarised. * Some folks find it to be the best thing ever [long battery life, the new patch makes the eink surprisingly fastly responsive, decent keyboard, no distractions] * While others find it terrible [it's still eink, that's a lot of money for a device that doesn't actually do much]
You can find a selection of alternatives, and homebrewed options, here: https://www.writerdeck.org/
Is that the true price for a low volume, niche product? Eink monopoly continues to make the world worse?
Looked it up, and the original One Laptop per Child came in around $200
My version uses ancient releases of Node and React for the UI for some horrible reason, and it is painfully slow.
I've rooted mine and have it as a project to look at the new OS and decide what to do with it, but if I had the cash I'd look elsewhere.
This is why I don't own a Freewrite. It should be such a simple device, but they found a way to make it complicated and lock it into their proprietary ecosystem. No thanks.
Then they released the new app, which looked like it was also just in userspace (not a kernel or fw update) so I wanted to start over with the update, but never got back to it.
And they're such a niche phenomenon that they have to do with the scraps left by other industries like ereaders.
One of the appealing features on the Note Max was the screen size (13.3"). How do you find working on such a small screen?
Perhaps you should have chosen a better one?!
...Now I kind of don't want to fix it :D
I fixed the second one normally because that's just embarrassing. I guess at least we know it was really written by a human? ;)
Some challenges I've experienced: (1) Can't find A5-sized e-ink screens that accept HDMI as an input, (2) It would be cool to use a common Android phone, since there are many around. RaspberryPI is an option. Honestly, would love the simplest portable device that runs Debian Stable on a battery, (3) I have NOT been able to find small, A5-sized keyboards. Most small keyboards are cheap plastic bluetooth junk.
If anyone would like to seriously rally around this, let's talk'bout it. My vision for this laptop has always been "10:00 AM Austin Texas, sitting at a patio bar in direct sun, journalling/coding/writing". I have not been able to find any computer device that satisfies that situation, so there is obviously a market niche.
For foldable keyboards, if they are flimsy or stable matters.
I do see the Note Max as presently available, FWIW: <https://shop.boox.com/products/notemax>
I've had a previous iteration of their 13.3" tablet, the Max Lumi. Slightly lower resolution, and has a frontlight. It is a very nice display, though with an Android OS which I see as a net negative.
I'd really like an e-ink display option for the Framework 12" or 13" laptop.
I backed it myself.