Moleskine Large Notebook review

This is the famous Moleskine Large Notebook. Large means 13 x 21 cm (5 x 8.25 in). It comes with ruled paper, a ribbon marker, an elastic closure and an inner pocket.

What I like about the Moleskine

The overall aspect

The general aspect is good, not to say really good. When manipulating the Moleskine, I have the same satisfying feeling than when manipulating, say, a piece of leather. It’s soft and slightly bends in hands. It does not really feel like an office notebook, more like an artist notebook, built to be negligently thrown on the coffee table.

The cover

The cover is smooth and perfectly aligned with the paper sheets, and produces a pleasant, unobtrusive sound when you put it on a table.

Definitely, the Moleskine is pleasant to manipulate.

What I don’t like about it

The paper

This sounds incredible for a something sold to write on it, but the paper is really, really poor. It is scratchy, almost transparent and fills to bursting with ink if you dare write with a fountain pen. If you intend to write with something else than a pencil, the Moleskine is not for you : the ball-point pen will simply waste one page on two, as well as any other ink-based pen.

This is what happens on the next page when you write with a ball-point pen.

The bullshit marketing

When you buy a Moleskine, there is a small story in the inner pocket which describes how many well-known writers have been using Moleskines for decades. This is mostly bullshit. Neither Hemingway, Picasso nor Van Gogh owned a Moleskine for a very simple reason : Moleskine has been created in 1998. More about that [here] (french).

The price

14€ or $15 for this paper ? Really ?

Final score

Paper   ★☆☆☆☆

Cover   ★★★★☆

Features   ★★★★☆

Price   ★★☆☆☆