That looks remarkably similar to the Cambridge Z88 which was my first thought when reading the OP:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88

Released in 1988 it was a portable typewriter, powered by batteries.

Ha, I knew about the AlphaSmart at one point and had totally forgotten it, but that's where I want to go. Totally a great example of a TRS-80 M100 clone. We can do this better now. Cheaper, better, relevant to multiple markets.

The FreeWrite seems conceptually close but misses the mark on a lot of implementation points. Running a Raspberry Pi or whatever is totally unnecessary. So is the realtime Dropbox syncback. Battery life is sacred, bitch.

It's also $500 for a Raspberry Pi in a plastic shell. I want to do an actual Raspberry Pi-style project that can be bought for something perceived as an actual value option in its situation.

Let's engineer a product for this, actually for this, not just "RPi but with XYZ".