I’ve been playing with the BYOK some more and I have some THOUGHTS.
I like the new fonts, for the most part.
On one hand, I am pleased that the latest update has added additional fonts (Times and Mono, now in addition to Arial). Each also comes in three font sizes (small, medium, and large). It’s always nice to have more options, and I doubt having three options for font will cause choice paralysis. (For comparison, there are over a hundred fonts to chose from in Microsoft Word.)
This step forward isn’t without its issues, however. I am currently using Mono (medium). I would prefer to use Mono (small), but the line spacing is such that the characters occasionally seem to meld together. I /could/ just accept that my eyes are aging and a larger font might be better for me. What I really want, though, is the ability to increase the space between lines without changing the font size. That would allow me the use the font size of my preference (small) without running into the spacing issue. Granted, I could also just switch back to Arial (small). That option is still on the table, at least.
The syncing has been a nightmare.
Aside from getting emails that my “free trial has ended,” (yikes), my BYOK has struggled to sync full documents to the BYOK “studio.” It only managed to upload the last paragraph or two of my latest work (which, for reference, is only around 3,000 words). It has continuously failed to grab the whole document even after multiple attempts to sync the BYOK using the built in “sync now” option on the device. Double yikes. (Also, all of my documents still say they’re “syncing” in the BYOK app, for what it’s worth.)
Syncing with Google Drive has also been a non-starter, unfortunately. I’ve followed all of the steps listed in the BYOK user manual, but no matter what I do I can’t seem to get my documents to sync to Google Drive. Perhaps this is a “paid only” feature? If that’s true, why was I allowed to add my Google account to the BYOK dashboard? I understand that this /could/ be user error, but it’s frustrating that this feature is never explicitly described as being behind the pay-wall in documentation provided by BYOK or on their sign-up page for BYOK studio. Setting up a folder to sync to and selecting the option to “backup syncs to Drive” in the options menu has also not solved this issue, to be clearb
How disk mode saves the day.
Honestly, These roadblocks alone would be enough for me to sell on the device, if it wasn’t for disk mode. Entering disk mode causes the device to act like a flash drive, making it quick and easy to pull “.txt” files off of the BYOK. Of course, since the BYOK doesn’t do rich text / formatting, I’ve had to use other programs to add the formatting in after pulling documents off the device. While I find this annoying (and while I wish BYOK would add basic ‘rich text’ like proper indents, lists, and bold/italic/underline), it isn’t a deal breaker (mostly because my documents have all been under 5,000 words so far). For longer documents (10,000+ words), I could imagine the extra “processing” necessary being a problem. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, though.
My conclusions (for now).
Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the other reason I’m not in a rush to part with the BYOK is because I’ve found the form factor pleasurable to engage with and the integration of magnets useful for keeping the device at my eye-level. I’m not sure it’s my “end game” writing device (or that any device could fill that role, really), but it’s still fun to play with. As such, my plan is to continue to use the device (for now). If something better (or, let’s be honest, newer and shinier) comes along, then I’ll reconsider my position.
Addendum: 2/8/2026
Good news! I figured out how to get the device to actually send documents (txt files) to Google Drive. Bad news! It doesn’t seem to happen automatically, and files must be sent individually (even after connecting the BYOK app to GDrive and setting up a folder to sync to). This is manageable for the moment since I only have a handful of documents on the BYOK. I could see this becoming quite irritating once I have more projects (ie file folders) and documents on-device. With all of that said, this still isn’t enough to tear me away from this system (for now, thank goodness for disk mode), but it is another reason for me to shake my head and sigh at the device.
