I too have the bad fortune to remove HP crapware from computers. When they ask me for a reason why I don’t want their McAfee or Wolf security or to send all my data through their servers, I take the time to write something like “I hate your shitty company and your products”
I like your optimism, but: “A double-click opens the Essential Space. This is where all the little snippets you record during the day end up, and the AI uses them to create reminders, recommendations and the like. Essential requires an internet connection. According to Nothing, the data remains within the EU on a server in Paris.” Here.
To make sure Essential Space is always a click away, Nothing created the Essential Key.
The only thing I love more than cloud-backed note-taking crapware is when it has a dedicated hardware key. I hope they haven’t gone full Bixby and it can be remapped without jumping through hoops.
Why not just install Graphene? That’s the only reason I’d spring for Google’s hardware.