Review: Whitelines Link A5 Notebook - Lined & Squared

Whitelines have become more popular and many fountain pen users are extra curious about these notebooks. The famous question of course - is it fountain pen friendly? Whitelines Link notebooks are best of both worlds - notebooks, and technology-capable notebooks to boot. How's that? Let's check them out!

ABOUT

Paper from Sweden
Weight: 80 g
Size: A5
Color: Grey
Ruling: 8 mm Lined/ 5mm x 5mm Squared
Sheet Count: 80
Price: $11.50

APPEARANCE

These two Whitelines Link demo pads are spiral bound size A5 notebooks. I won't describe the covers too much as these particular notebooks are demo notebooks. The retail versions are much prettier - clean, white notebooks with Whitelines Link written on the front. The notebook is thin and flat. Inside, each page is perforated for easy removal. At the corner of each page is a little signature for the Whitelines app to detect where to capture. The lines/squared ruling is white on the light grey page. There are three tiny, very adorable markers at the bottom of the page - Evernote, DropBox, and an email icon, indicating the options you have available to you after you capture your page with the app.

PERFORMANCE & FEEL

The entire notebook does not feel particularly heavy duty. It's a decent, lightweight notebook that is easy to keep in your work bag to tote around. The cover is not heavy duty either so it can get dog eared with rough use. The pages turn easily on the spirals, and the pages tear out easily.

The paper is smooth but not the glossy nor coated type of smooth. It has a very slight texture to it (paper texture, that is) which provides some writing feedback. Ballpoints, pencils, and gel pens write effortlessly and without issue on this paper. Smooth, fibers don't catch on the tip, ink doesn't bleed.

When Kaylee sent me the notebooks, she did tell me I would be really impressed by the paper. I was unsure because I was thinking "but for fountain pens...?" So there was nothing else to do but try out a bunch of fountain pens and various nib sizes. Good thing I have like, 15 pens inked. Most importantly, in my humble opinion, is there was no feathering. Even where the ink was heavy and bled through, it still did not feather on the page. Fine to medium nibs with normal ink flow did not show through nor bleed through. Show through or bleed through was evident with medium to broader nibs with wet ink.

Again, I do not expect that fountain pen friendly paper will never have bleed or show through; but I do expect it not to feather, and it didn't.

While the nibs do not glide smoothly across the paper, they don't drag either. It's a decent, tactile writing experience. I wouldn't do calligraphy on this paper (not that I can do calligraphy anyway), but for taking notes or doing work, it's perfectly acceptable and quite nice in fact.

HOW IT WORKS

After writing whatever you want to write on your page, you open up your Whitelines app on your iOS device, and using the four little markers in the corners of each page, you place your device over the page so that those little markers are on the screen. As soon as the app focuses, it will automatically capture the image and take you to the next option. What is truly amazing is how it removes the background (the grey part of the page) and leaves only your writing, and even the vivid colour of the fountain pen ink, as in this case. You can then email it or save it to your DropBox/Evernote app or whatever you wish.

The Whitelines app is only available for iOS on iTunes. The app itself has mixed reviews but I'm not here to review the app. I'm here to review the notebook!

PROS

• Fountain pen friendly
• Affordable
• Gadget-compatible
• Very easy on the eyes
• Perforated pages
• Two sizes to pick from - A4 & A5
• Portable scanner
• Just like all other Whitelines, when you copy, scan, or fax, the white lines disappear

CONS

The app needs work. That's not the notebook itself, but it certainly affects the useability of the entire function of the notebook. Mine crashed several times while I was trying to capture images of the pages I wrote on for this review. I use an iPod Touch with the latest iOS.

OVERALL

These are really cool notebooks. I often have taken notes on various pieces of paper or in a notebook and then needed a digital copy of it, so I've taken a picture of it (a terrible picture, mind you) and have sent it to the necessary people. These nifty notebooks perfectly that care of that need. I LOVE that they're fountain pen friendly. What a relief! They're affordable, creative, and useful. Especially for those of us who love our gadgets, and our pens as well.

A4 notebooks are also available with 80 sheets, should you prefer larger pages.

Whitelines provided these Whitelines Link notebooks to me free of charge for the purposes of this review. All opinions here are 100% wholeheartedly my own, I swear. On the paper. I was not compensated monetarily for this review!