Review (and Giveaway!): Large Quo Vadis Habana Lined Notebook

UPDATE: Giveaway Entries are Closed. Winners will be posted and contacted on June 30.

This is "version 2.0" of the Habana that I reviewed here. All the great quality remains, but fans of the old Habana need to be aware of changes in the color, ruling, and weight of the paper.

Instructions for entering the giveaway are at the end of this post, and there's even a consolation prize!

The Review

The old and new versions both have 80 sheets of Clairefontaine's legendary paper. As always, it is silky smooth to the touch and a dream to write on. So smooth, in fact, that I've read complaints from some Fountain Pen Network members that the paper is too smooth and makes them lose control of their pen! I love the smooth writing feel, but there is a price to pay for it: ink drying times tend to be slow. If you write with a fountain pen, you're going to wind up with lots of ink transfer to the opposite page unless you give time for the ink to dry (which could be 30 seconds or more, depending on the ink and nib combination) before closing the notebook or you use a sheet of blotting paper as a bookmark.

But the paper is otherwise quite different from the original version of the Habana:

	Original U.S. Version	New Version  (reviewed in this post)
Paper Weight	90 gsm	85 gsm
Paper Color	bright white	ivory
Ruling width	8 mm	5.5 mm
Lines per page	26	40
Distance from top of page to first rule	24 mm	9 mm
Distance from bottom of page to last rule	14 mm	9 mm
Rules	light gray solid lines	light gray dotted lines

Unfortunately, none of my photos accurately captured the color of the pages. The closest would probably be this one. When you see "ivory," you shouldn't confuse it with "off-white." I've seen this paper described as "off-white," but the paper is far darker than that. From what I can tell, it is about the same color as the paper in my Rhodia webnotebook.

The 5.5 mm ruling is very narrow. People who typically write with finer points and tend to write small anyway will love it. But if you like to write big and bold, this notebook probably only makes sense for you if you're going to write on every other line. Large writing would bunch lines much too closely to read comfortably. Fans of the old ruled Habana are going to have a hard time adjusting to this one.

What a difference in ruling! Old version on left, new version on right.
Top-most group of lines on rights is same as number of lines on left.

Provided you use every line, the new ruling is going to save you money over the older version. By narrowing the ruling and leaving less blank space above and below the ruling at the top and bottom of the page, each page now has 40 lines for writing instead of the 26 on the previous version. That's more than 50% more lines on the same size page, or the equivalent of adding 40 sheets to the notebook!

Another nice plus to the changes is that between the color of the paper and the dotted lines, the the light gray dotted rules are virtually unnoticeable on the written page. There's just enough there to guide your writing as you go, and it is almost invisible once you've written on it.

Another change in the ruling is that unlike the older version, the ruling does not extend the entire width of the page from the binding to the edge. Instead, there is a border of "white space" a few mm wide at both the binding and page edge.

The paper in this generation of Habana is a slightly lighter weight than in the first generation U.S. version. This apparently was a compromise between the weight in the U.S. version and non-U.S. version of the first generation Habana so that a single version of the second-generation Habana could ship everywhere.

The lighter weight is not really noticeable to the touch, nor does it result in a noticeably thinner notebook, but the lighter paper did allow some ever-so-slight and occasional bleed-through with two of the fountain pen inks I tried. Show-through actually seemed about the same or slightly better on the lighter ivory paper than on the heavier white paper of the first generation, probably on account of the color. Needle-point pens seemed to leave a significantly deeper impression in the lighter paper (though I can't guarantee I wrote with the same pressure in both versions, so this observation may be a result of writing with different pressure in each notebook). A light touch may be needed with those pens to keep from introducing too much texture to the reverse side of the page. There was no noticeable feathering with any of the fountain pen, gel, or rollerball inks I tried.

Sturdy, fabric-like gusset on the large
back pocket suggests durability

Other than changes in available colors, everything else about the Habana seems pretty much the same as the original. The cover is still a "hard flexible" cover that's firm enough for writing when away from your desk but has some give that might let you stuff it in a bag that has no room for a stiffer cover. The cloth bookmark is still there, as is the back pocket, complete with the fabric-like gussets that suggest to me that this pocket can put up with heavier use than most.

Which is a good thing, because this pocket will see more use if I use a Habana for work. Because the dimensions of the large Habana (6.25 in x 9.25 in.) are larger than the typical A5-sized notebook, it will accommodate a letter-size sheet folded in half, which the pockets of A5-size notebooks simply can't.

Three views comparing the large Habana to a typical "large" notebook. The smaller notebook I used here, however, is about 1/4 inch narrower (when closed) than a large Moleskine.

As usual, you can view more photos at my Flickr photo set for this review.

The Giveaway

Left: New version large Habana. Right: Old version pocket Habana.

I was tempted to keep this as my work notebook, but seeing as how Karen art Exaclair supplied the Habana gratis, I thought it more appropriate to spread the love and give it away.  And, to the runner-up, I will give a small first-generation black Habana with blank pages. I believe the small Habana has 64gsm paper, but I'm not sure. (I bought it long ago and failed to review it.) Both the large and small Habanas will have a page of my test writing in them, but they are otherwise mint.

To enter, do BOTH of the following:

1. Leave a comment on this post, AND;

2. Email me at notebookeresqATgmail.com. Your email must give the name you used for commenting and the subject line must read EXACTLY:

HABANA

I do it this way to be sure I can contact the winners and so I can set up an email filter to group all entries as they come in. I will keep the giveaway open through at least midnight Pacific time on Tuesday, June 27.

The winner will be selected using the random number generator at random.org.

Good luck!

Review (and Giveaway!): Large Quo Vadis Habana Lined Notebook