What I mean here is that among the Adlers, Alpinas, and Olympias, and at least dozens of other overseas (to me) machines, Royals (Underwoods, Remingtons, Smith-Coronas, and others) seem "American," in that they lack a lot of the whizz-bang features such as additional keys, single-double horizontal spacing, paper stands, and paper feed levers.  Instead, they are (from what I've seen compared to the overseas models) more heavily-built with a lot of heavy typing in mind.  In other words, American typewriters could seem too underdesigned in the features they offer, and yet too overdesigned in that they're more heavily made.  Long story short, American typewriters are not as sophisticated, yet are built like tanks.  I hope I answered your question, KatLondon.  

I have relatively few European-made standards, but the ones that I do own from Olympia, Adler, Triumph, Continental, and arguably to a lesser degree even those from Olivetti, are as robust - if not more so - than their American counterparts. Built like tanks? If a Royal was a Sherman, an Olympia would be a King Tiger (and I swear that those early post-war Olympia portables were actually made from melted down tanks, they're that heavy). 

How many typewriters does it take to make a tank?  Or was that how many tanks does it take to make a typewriter?

TypewriterKing wrote:

This reminds me of people comparing the brands of cars they bought last year and comparing them to whatever everybody else is driving and also to the new cars coming out this year.

I think at this point, comparing typewriters would be more like evaluating older used vehicles - no two are going to be the exact same due to differing levels of use/maintenance/care/etc.  There isn't really any baseline standard that different makes can be held to, ore even different models from the same make.  

So for me, at least, it's harder to do an apples-to-apples comparison due to limited stock and the different histories that each individual unit has.  We're left to compare individual machines what would never have been cross shopped with each other new, with only time to equalize the playing field.  50 years on, two different Jaguar E-Types could drive very differently from each other, to say nothing of trying to compare it to something like a Cadillac Eldorado or a Dodge Charger from similar time.

Hopefully that made sense.
 

"Heavier" you say? 

1952 Royal HH (with a 12" platen) = 13.8 kg (30.4 lbs)
1956 Olympia SG1 (with a 15" platen) = 17.9 kg (39.4 lbs)

1964 Royal Empress (with a 16" platen!) = 16.3 kg (36 lbs)
1964 Underwood Touch-Master Five (regular platen) = 14 kg (30.8 lbs)
1963 Olympia SG3 (regular width platen) = 16.9 kg (37.2 lbs)

It's the same trend with portables:
1955 Royal Quiet De Luxe = 5.6 kg (12.4 lbs)
1960 Olympia SM4 = 6.7 kg (14.8 lbs)

Seems to me that the American machines are actually lighter... 
 

I don't make myself out to be the expert on everything in the world ALL the time, you know