The We-R-Memory Keepers and it's other badge-engineered equivalents have the typeface (type slugs) actually moulded directly onto the type bars - worse than a child's toy typewriter.  To compensate for the soft plastic typeface, the platen is made from incredibly soft rubber, not far from sponge rubber in consistency.  I always say that these are a typewriter-shaped object and not a real typewriter at all.  It makes the Rover look well-engineered by comparison.  The sad thing about the We-R-Memory Keepers is that it doesn't have to be like that at all.  It is based on the mis-1970's Nakajima which wasn't Rolls-Royce quality true, but was still a perfectly adequate machine. Good enough to be sold as an Olympia (Carina), Adler, Hermes and others.  But the Chinese have degraded the design  beyond practical use.

I couldn't agree more.  These machines were made in the Olympia factory in Northern Ireland that was previously manufacturing Olympia mechanical adding machines.  They are the very last gasp of the SM series, and although they do contain a high proportion of plastic parts, they are still head and shoulders above most other manufacturers' machines that were available in the same period.  I am currently working on a customer's 1939 Olympia Simplex and the Monica is clearly the final development of that design.