The Reso Notebook

Reso was a brand I had never heard of until I stumbled across them whilst strolling around Amazon one day and I happened to notice an unusual looking notebook, I only looked at it briefly before dropping it in my basket along with a few other notebooks and placed my order.

When it arrived, I was surprised to see that it came in its own box and inside this it was wrapped in cellophane and inside this I could see a thank you note which included a contact email for providing feedback to Reso about the notebook. 

Now that was a little while ago and since then it has been patiently waiting for its turn to be reviewed and today is that day.

The notebook is a really nice mid-brown and what I originally thought was took a leather effect cover is, in fact, a wood grain effect; I’ve never seen a wood grain effect cover on a notebook but Reso have done an excellent job. 

The only external branding is top right on the front cover and is the company name and logo, an ‘S’ shaped vine with leaves; this is in a dark brown reminiscent of how it would look if it was branded onto wood.

There is an elastic closure which is a good colour match for the cover and so far, despite my best efforts, it has not stretched out of shape and become useless (which more than can be said for some of the Moleskines I own). The other external feature is a pen loop, which again has been made from very good elastic and whilst it looks like the most it could hold is a Bic ballpoint it easily accommodated my large Ranga 8B fountain pen, so you should be fine with most average sized pens.

Inside the front cover you will find a calendar page and then you are straight into the notebook; it might seem like a somewhat minimalistic approach when compared to other notebooks that have lots information pages; but Reso is giving only what you really need, a clutter free note taking environment.

The notebook is A5 sized and has 100 sheets/200pages of 100gsm off white paper; each page is formatted with Memo and Date headings followed by 21 lines in light grey print with the 8mm spacing. The notebook is built in sections and each section has been stitched before being bound together and having the covers added. This means this notebook does lay flat when you open it enabling you to use the full width of the page wherever you open it. There is a dark brown bookmark ribbon to and inside the back cover is a pocket for notes, tickets, receipts et cetera.

For the ink test I used Diamine Oxford Blue and did both Q-Tip and text; I was pretty liberal with the ink and when I looked on the reverse side there was no ghosting or bleed through of any sort; so I’m happy to say that this is a fountain pen friendly notebook.

I quite like the format of Memo & Date as it allows the notebook to be used how you prefer whilst still giving you the option of some basic structure if you want it. All in all, this is a simple notebook that delivers what it should.

Finally, is it worth your pennies?

I think it is, for approximately £7.99GBP this is a good buy, it is available in either lined or dot grid formats and the unique cover design certainly means you will never pick up the wrong notebook.

Disclaimer: The notebook was purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.