Paperian Flat Checklist A5 Notepad Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

Paperian is a new-to-me stationery brand that has a collection of handy notepads that will be at home on any desk along with other stationery or tech paraphernalia. Paperian is a Korean company based in Seoul that have a lot of compelling products on display. Today, we'll take a look at the A5 checklist notepad.

The Paperian Flat Checklist Notepad is an A5 notepad with a pliable glued binding that makes it easy to tear out sheets when you're done for the week. There are 60 sheets in the pad, so you should get more than a year of use out of one pad if you use one sheet per week. The paper is a little on the thick side at 100 gsm, but it has a nice, smooth texture that is easy to write on. The color of the paper is an off-white color that I'd say is a bit more white than the typical ivory paper. I like the color of the paper, and it doesn't negatively affect the ink colors.

There are a few sheet style and size options, but the one I have is called Checklist, and it features a 7-day calendar along the top, a checklist area on the left, and a larger dot-grid notes area with taking up the rest of the space. The top of the page has a space to write in the date or duration of the week. There's a lot of space, so go nuts! Aside from the Checklist style, you can also get Graph, which is 2/3 graph paper on the left, and lined paper on the right third. The bottom right has the only branding, which is a Flat logo and a positive slogan: "Organize all of your thoughts, ideas, and plans that come to mind." It's really small and doesn't detract from any of the usable space on the page.

Before we jump into the page format, let's see how this paper performs with different types of pens and ink! For something that I'd likely keep on my desk all the time to jot down notes or plan out my week, I want something that can effortlessly deal with all types of pens and ink since I tend to have all sorts of writing instruments around. The 100 gsm paper feels nice. It's smooth and has a small amount of texture that provides a nice amount of feedback when writing. The paper doesn't seem to have any coating on it, so ink dries quickly. With a couple of fountain pens I tried, the ink quickly bled and feathered a bit, making the lines look a lot wider than they do on other paper. This wasn't the case with all of the fountain pens, so it's likely down to the combination of the ink and paper. Ballpoints, hybrid ballpoints, gel, rollerball, felt-tip, graphite, and wood-case pencils all work beautifully with this paper.

The format is where this notepad starts to lose me. Everything is so small! I can write small when I need to, but it's not my default and not something I'm looking for in a desk notepad. The blocks set aside for the days of the week are too small to be useful for me. I'm not able to write down more than one useful piece of info per day without running out of space. The tasks section is also a bit small, requiring small writing. The checkboxes are also comically small. The dot-grid notes area is less of a problem due to the open nature of a grid layout.

For my own use, I'd only use very fine pens with this notepad so I could write small and take advantage of the layout. Gel pens 0.5 mm and smaller, ballpoints 0.7 mm and smaller, and mechanical pencils with 0.5 mm lead or smaller is the sweet spot for this notepad. I think my favorite pens to use with this pad are 0.38 mm gel pens and 0.5 mm hybrid ballpoints (like the Jetstream or Acroball). Anything larger makes this pad less useful.

If you like writing small and using ultra-fine pens, this might be a good format for your weekly planning and notes. For everyone else, I'd suggest the A5 Graph option instead.

The Paperian Flat A5 Checklist notepad is $10.50, but you can also pick it up with a graph layout or a full-month calendar layout. And, they have several smaller options too. This notepad is well-made and aesthetically pleasing, but it just doesn't scratch the itch for me. I love that they've laid it out as a horizontal A5 pad and that the sheets tear out easily and cleanly. While this notepad isn't something I'll reach for, I look forward to seeing other products from Paperian!

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Life Stationery Noble A5 and B6 Notebook Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The Noble Note line of notebooks from Life Stationery has long been on my radar of notebooks to try out since they get so much attention and are easily recommended. It's taken me a while to try these out because I have a first-world problem of having too many great notebooks to choose from in my stationery stash. But finally, I have a couple of these popular Japanese notebooks on my desk, and I've spent some time with them to see what the hype is all about.

I have the Life Noble A5 notebook in grid format and the Life Noble B6 notebook in lined format. Both of these are available in either grid, lined, or plain paper, and you can also get them in other sizes, like A4, B5, and more. The cover colors are locked to the paper format, though! I wouldn't normally pick lined over grid, but I just had to have the lovely blue cover in hand.

One of the first things that struck me about these notebooks is how well-made they feel. The binding is tight and clean, the edges are straight, and the cover design is crisp. Quality control on these notebooks is obviously very stringent.

Both notebooks have 100 sheets (200 pages) of ivory 84.9 gsm acid-free paper. The binding uses the perfect-bound technique, which involves several sections that are bound with thread and then connected to each other with an adhesive spine. It makes for a clean look where you can see the four sections from the side, and then the characteristic black spine tape. This also makes it easier for the notebook to lay open on its own.

The 84.9 gsm paper is a joy to use. I'm not a huge fan of ivory paper — I prefer white paper — but it's easy to look past that preference in this case. The paper doesn't feel thick, but it performs like thicker paper. I haven't noticed any adverse behaviors like feathering, bleeding, or skipping when writing in these notebooks. There's a bit of ghosting or show-through on the back of the page, but not enough to prevent you from writing on both sides of the sheet. When writing, the feel of the paper through the pen tip is smooth with subtle feedback that lets you easily control the pen. A little bit of texture in paper goes a long way, and these notebooks nailed the balance of smoothness and texture for great writing feel.

If I were to point out a couple of flaws that I've found with these books, it would be these two things: I wish the corners were rounded a bit to prevent them getting bent, and I wish the pages were numbered. Outside of that, it's tough to find anything wrong with these. The paper is excellent, the outside is aesthetically pleasing and functional, and the price is in line with the level of quality you're getting from the product.

These notebooks are slightly more luxurious than other notebooks I commonly use, but they're still well within reach for anyone that has chosen to pursue this hobby and appreciates good paper.

The Life Noble A5 is $23, while the Life Noble B6 is $17. They have plenty of great paper and will last a while with regular use. For the amount of paper you get with these notebooks, they're a great deal and the paper quality is really tough to beat. At this level of performance, it really just comes down to personal preference. If you've already found the perfect notebook and paper for you, then I'm really happy for you and I hope we all find that perfect match! But, if you're always looking for the next possible perfect match, then put the Life Noble notebooks at the top of your list.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

BENU Pixie Emerald Green Fountain Pen Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The Benu Pixie has gotten a lot of attention and hype ever since it launched since it's a new entry in the pocket pen category. Pocket pens are exciting because they usually have some sort of interesting or unique design due to the size constraints. While pocket pens aren't for everyone, the Pixie is certainly one to consider if you're a fan of the small form factor.

The BENU Pixie in Emerald Green and Silver Trim is the one that called out to me, and I couldn't be happier with the look of this little pen. The material is a mix of a rich, royal blue and a vibrant emerald green that both have sparkly, reflective particulates floating around to add character and dimension to the luxurious colors. Where the green and blue materials meet, there's a band of gold/copper flakes that do a great job of marrying to the two hues.

The pen body and grip section are both made of the same blue material, while the cap is split 50/50 between the blue and green. The gold/copper flake band and debossed BENU logo fall directly on the border of green and blue material. The area of the cap that has the logo is also slightly concave. Either capped or posted, the pen is gorgeous. The silver BENU logo and nib match well with the green and blue materials.

Like a lot of pocket fountain pens, this pen also relies on you posting the cap when you want to write. When the cap is posted, the length of the pen is comfortable for writing as long as you like. It balances nicely and the fit of the cap on the back of the pen is snug and secure. It's easy to operate, and the cap only takes a couple of turns to remove or screw on. The pen body without the cap is just impossible for me to use, but I'm sure some people could make it work. I'm not sure why you'd want to when the posted setup is so comfortable, though.

The silver #5 Schmidt steel nib worked great out of the box for me. I chose an EF point since this such a tiny pen, but it's actually comfortable enough in my hand that I could have easily gone for a large nib. In my mind, smaller pens are easier to use when they have small nib tips, but that's entirely unrelated. The Pixie can easily handle large, wet nibs with no problem.

But, large, wet nibs will fly through short international cartridges, which is the largest refill you can fit in this little pen. This isn't a problem for anyone that's used a pocket pen before. The diminutive size means they're also paired with a small ink capacity. You could probably find a converter or two that can fit inside the tiny body, but I'd stick with the short international cartridges. Either that, or you could convert this into an eyedropper pen pretty easily provided you have some silicone grease. There are plenty of threads mating the grip to the pen body to ensure a tight seal.

I was hoping the concave area of the cap would provide a nice stopper for the pen to keep it from rolling around, but this is unfortunately not the case. The concave detail just isn't prominent enough to offer any sort of stopping power, so the pen rolls freely on uneven surfaces. This is a slight bummer, but not a deal-breaker.

I also wish there was an option for a clip on this pen. Pocket pens can be tricky to secure to things given their unique sizes, and a clip can be handy if you don't plan on carrying this pen loose in a pocket or bag. I'm betting that they didn't include a clip so as to keep the minimal aesthetic and to avoid covering the beautiful material. Still, I like to think it could have been done tastefully if they really wanted to.

LAMY AL-Start, left, Kaweco ART Sport, right.

The Benu Pixie has been an absolute pleasure to use. I like pocket pens and really enjoy a Kaweco Sport. The Pixie is similar in size, but a little shorter both when capped and posted. For my hand, it doesn't seem to make much difference in terms of feel between the two pens. Once again, BENU has given us a bunch of gorgeous material options to choose from. While I still adore this Emerald Sea colorway, there are several others that are still calling to me. I just don't need that many pocket pens. Right?

If you want a Pixie of your own, you can peruse the different options at Vanness. There are several material options split between two main categories: silver trim and gold trim. The trim and materials are meant to compliment each other.

At $72, the Benu Pixie is priced in a way that makes it really difficult to turn down. It's cheaper than most BENU full-sized pens, but you still get the stellar materials and color options. Sure, it's more than double the price of a Kaweco Sport, but it's well worth it in my mind due to the custom materials that give the pens most of their character. Either way, if you like the color, you won't be disappointed in the performance.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!