The Pomera DM250

On February 24th, 2025, I started using the DM250. This is my initial thoughts on the DM250, and some resources related to it. It is not a product review or a blog post per-se, but my thoughts, essentially.

The Pomera DM250 from King Jim is an “electronic typewriter” type device. Quite honestly, this is a class of device that I didn't know existed, but solves one of my needs quite well: the ability to have a place I can write on-the-go, without being the unwieldy size of a laptop. Actually, it's probably a bit better than that for several reasons notably:

It does not have an “OS” in the traditional sense of the term that requires updates and care to maintain. To be honest, the idea of buying another laptop that I have to maintain system updates for, as well as generally make it happy and convenient to use with my own customizations, was not appealing. This was always a minor thought in the back of my mind, but this is solved by the DM250 simply by virtue of not having an OS to maintain at all. It obviously runs an OS, but it doesn't run macOS or Windows.
The battery life is excellent (about 24 hours of continuous typing, and probably way more on standby “off”).
It is significantly smaller than even the smallest devices I've owned or even considered for this task. For example, the GPD Win Max 2 offers a serviceable product, but it is still a relatively large device compared to the DM250. Further, it's also significantly heavier.
It does one thing and one thing only very well: typing and being a place to input text. It does not have “bells and whistles” other than a calendar and a dictionary. This makes it a perfect device for things like typing, typing, and more typing. It is not also a gaming device, nor is it also a web browsing device. In a way, the simplicity is freeing of other concerns, like what apps to install, what settings to configure, etc.

The primary goal I've had for a long time was having a way to enter text while out-and-about. The appeal of being able to sit down at a coffee shop after a walk and journal has been immensely appealing, but unrealistic. Usually this is because laptops have been too large, or because they're too impractical to carry with me. But the DM250 is practical to carry, and it's a reasonable device for this task. The keyboard is probably the most reasonable thing: it is a device that is both designed for text-entry at its core, being the correctly sized and not compromising on the typing experience. The MacBook One, for example, had a terrible keyboard, despite it being close to the ideal size for me.

Surprisingly, the horizontal form factor is also a really cool bonus: it fits neatly into a nice bag from MUJI without taking up tons of space.

Perhaps my biggest criticism of it is the rejection of modern cloud-based tools, like continuous connection and sync. It allows synchronizing by sequentially scanning QR codes, bluetooth, wifi direct, and apparently an SD card called the FlashAir that allows one to pull data down off of an SD card directly. I have not explored these options, but maybe it's okay for now.

The biggest other thing worth noting is that the on-board storage isn't encrypted. You can password protect the DM250, but that password is limited to 8 characters, and is not an encryption password. So if this thing is stolen, your data is too. But maybe the fact that I live in Japan is enough of a counter for this concern.

Added notes on February 28th, 2025:

The calendar system does not seem to have any way to synchronize data to an SD card or to pull data directly off of it via PC link. I'm not sure why, but it seems like calendar data is stuck on the internal memory. This makes it a semi-annoying feature because the design and implementation are nice, but using it is not a reliable way to keep data.
The soft touch plastic is extremely easy to scuff and get dirty.
Some keys seem to randomly want to lift off of the keyboard on my unit – but this is probably a quality issue with the keyboard and usually making sure the keycaps are on the switches properly resolves it.

The Pomera DM250

Other reading