I owned two Newtons. The jokes about the handwriting recognition are a bit overstated, especially as later apps made it a joy to use. Also, Newton was way ahead of its time, and though it looks quaint today, it was really something back in the day.
I had a Newton back then. Most of those who joked about the handwriting recognition were tech reporters who played with it for all of five minutes. Once you used the device on a regular basis, the recognition got better, similar to today's iPhone keyboard.
The handwriting recognition was running on the CPU so it got much better when they jumped from the 20 mhz ARM on the MP 1x0 to the 162 mhz StrongARM on the later models.