After a little bit of confusion, its finally time to get the Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook review (buy here via Amazon) up. The confusion was on my part in thinking that this was available in a red cover as well, but let me be clear, its definitely not. The red notebook is actually the same size, but a hard cover that I’ll review shortly. When you visit that link, select the black version of the notebook and not the red version.
The Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook has a leather-like and textured feel to the cover. The edge is bound with red accentuated threading and there is also a red elastic closure strap. The Black n’ Red logo is embossed in the front corner of the notebook. One thing I was anticipating here was a ribbon page finder. Not a big deal that its not there, but it would have been a nice to have feature.
Just like the rest of their notebooks, the Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook is pretty subtle on the branding. The only branding you will find on the back of the notebook is a bold letter “B” that is about half an inch tall. This is the only version of their notebooks that have a soft cover that isn’t of the polypropylene type, which gives it a more high quality, luxury look and feel.
Inside the Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook there are a few things to note. Each of the pages has a capital “B” printed on the bottom in the same shade of grey as the page rulings. There is also a back pocket folder, which I was surprised to see had some chipping in the lining of it. This exposes some white underneath which doesn’t keep it as clean looking, but a minor and only aesthetic quibble on my part.
The stitching inside of the Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook appears to be firmly in place with no snags or loose threading. The top of the pages are numbered and there is a blank spot for you to add the date. There is a break in the rulings that is helpful for bulleted lists too.
Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook Writing Samples:
This writing sample in the Black n’ Red Soft Cover notebook hits some of the key features such as:
- A5 Size (8.25 inches x 5.75 inches)
- 90 GSM Optik Paper – Pretty fountain pen friendly
- Soft flexible cover
- 142 individually numbered pages
- Back inside cover pocket
- Red elastic closure strap
- Table of contents
- Red twine stitched binding
- Lay flat binding
- Rounded corners (great for pulling in and out of a bag to reduce snags)
- Left margin line breaks to make lists and bulleting easier
The writing sample above was with a Pelikan M805 medium nib and Noodler’s Q Eternity Ink. The ink lays down really nicely on the page with minimal to no spreading and zero feathering. Its a really smooth paper to write on, just like all of the other Black n’ Red notebooks I’ve reviewed.
The backside of the paper in the Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook had some show through with this combo. The darker ink with the larger size nib leans more towards being likely to have this issue. It wasn’t horrible, but its just enough to be bothersome for me with this particular pen and ink.
All of the other pens I wrote with in the Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook wrote just as smoothly on the paper in this notebook. I even tried the Noodler’s Q Eternity ink again, but with an EF nib instead. It still showed through some, but not enough to show up when I scanned the back of the page. No inks in the writing sample above showed through on the back of the page to see in the scan.
No surprise here, just another Black n’ Red notebook with great performance, a good price, and with great looks. I may be one of the few people that finds Black n’ Red Notebooks to be so awesome, but I’m OK with that. Their notebooks are just kind of a reliable, nothing flashy, but still good looking option that you can always expect good things from. Grab your own Black n’ Red Soft Cover Notebook over here on Amazon and see for yourself. Be sure to select the Black option, not the red. Its a different notebook with a hard cover that you will see a review of here shortly.
©2017, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.
