(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
The Kokuyo Campus Business 105BT-DB A5 notebook is easy to miss based on the name alone, but underneath the non-descriptive number/letter name is a fantastic little notebook. There are so many different A5 notebooks to choose from; it's basically one of the most popular notebook sizes available, and for good reason. It's large enough to write comfortably, but small enough to easily transport and carry around. Why choose this notebook over another? Well, like most things, it comes down to personal preference.
To me, one of the big distinguishing factors of this notebook is the cover and binding. it's a flimsy, flexible cover and a blued binding that gives the notebook more of a permanent journal feel over a spiral-bound notebook for school notes. It's still fairly economical, though. At just over $3, it's a great value for the level of quality. The glue binding feels strong, but also pliable enough to allow the notebook to easily stay flat when open.
The cover is a dark blue with white text, but there's also a subtle gray honeycomb pattern all over the cover. I really like this extra visual texture on an otherwise "all business" notebook.
Inside the covers, there's 50 sheets of Kokuyo's lovely 70gsm paper. The paper is lined (30 lines per page), but there are also dots along the lines to provide some guidance for separating things horizontally. The paper has a silky smooth coating that makes most pens glide across the surface, but some pens/inks have trouble getting enough "grip" to make the ink flow freely. In my testing, I've only had issues with a 1.5mm stub nib and the Schmidt P8126 rollerball refill. The rollerball seems to lack the amount of friction required to rotate the microscopic ball that distributes the ink on the page. Once it's moving, it's not bad, but it does take a little scribbling to make it start. Aside from that, I really love using this paper with all manner of writing instruments (provided they agree with the paper coating).
Show-through on the back of the sheet is fairly prominent with fountain pen inks, but not so bad with everything else. This is typical and expected for the paper weight (70gsm) but something you should consider if you mostly use large fountain pen nibs or anything else that lays down a lot of ink compared to a traditional fine fountain pen or gel ink refill.
This notebook is utilitarian on both the outside and inside. There's some normal branding and retail markings on the exterior covers, but the inside covers are bare (aside from a few diagrams with suggestions for using the dots system). No name labels or anything; the notebook just gets right to business with the first page. The pages aren't numbered, but there is a convenient spot in the top outer corner of each page for the date.
The Kokuyo Campus Business A5 notebook is a no-frills workhorse of a notebook. I've really enjoyed using it over the past several weeks. The size is perfect and the flexible covers make it comfortable to carry and handle. While it's not a great choice for writing in environments where you don't have a hard surface to work on, it's an excellent choice for notes and journaling as long as you have a desk or table to work from. The silky smooth paper is enjoyable and the unique Kokuyo dots/lines paper layout is useful. At $3.30 a notebook, they're a great option for stocking up on this handy size notebook.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
