The Apica CD Notebook B7 is a pocket size notebook that I recently picked up from JetPens (Apica CD Notebook B7 via Amazon) based on my really favorable views of the Apica Premium CD Notebook (review here) that I’ve used in the past.
The cover of the Apica CD Notebook B7 has a great textured look and feel. Although it is a paper-like cardboard stock, it has a look and texture that reminds me of linen, but without the actual textile qualities. Overall the notebook measures 3.5 inches by 4.8 inches making it perfect for the back pocket of your jeans or the front pocket of a jacket. The only drawback there though is that with pointed corners its easier to snag and get beat up as compared to rounded corner pocket notebooks.
In addition to the nicely textured cover of the Apica CD Notebook, it has an outside black cloth tape binding that contrasts nicely with the dark blue cover. Speaking of which, the Apica CD Notebook B7 comes in 9 different colors: Black, Navy, Red, Mustard, Light Green, Yellow, Sky Blue, Light Blue, and White. Although I personally prefer notebooks to have covers with minimal design or writing, for some reason I can tolerate the fairly excessive design on this one, possibly because it at least leaves out any actual branding.
The branding and other information is reserved for the back of the Apica CD Notebook B7, which also shares the similarly textured look and feel as the front. I should mention that all of the print on both the front and the back of the notebook is done with a nicely contrasting silver color, although the that print color varies depending on the color cover that you select.
Inside, the Apica CD Notebook B7 is held together with a simple white threaded binding. This makes for an easy to write in and easy to open up flat notebook. You can even fold the cover back over on itself, which makes it much sturdier to write on if you are just holding it in your hand with nowhere to lean against while you write.
Apica CD Notebook B7 Writing Sample:
I did find that although most pens wrote well on the paper, there was some feathering with my Pelikan M805 fountain pen and the Pilot Precise V5. When I went back to look at and test the same inks on the larger Apica C.D. Premium notebook mentioned earlier in this review, those two pens behaved much better with no feathering. Everything else felt great as I was writing on this smooth white paper with 6mm spaced grey rulings. To me, the major downfall though is that the pages do suffer from significant showthrough on the other side with all of my writing tools, excluding the .3mm Kuru Toga. If the showthrough isn’t an issue for you I do think this is a great looking and pretty nice little pocket notebook though. The quality build and unique cover, are one thing, but it also scores points in my book for just being a good quality notebook thats also not a super common notebook that you will see everyone else using. Check out all of the colors available here on Jetpens.
©2016, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.
