Freak369's Full Review: Five Star Mead Fat 'Lil Neatbook 200 Sheets
My kids are hard on school supplies, they always have been. I could buy twenty notebooks and a month later they’d be asking for more because the tore threw them at an alarming rate. When they started doing day camps, field trips and attending classes at some local schools they asked for something small that they could carry with them so, and I quote them, “So we won’t look like complete geeks”. It’s hard to find a good quality notebook that isn’t in the standard size unless you go with a composition book or something that soccer moms use for writing down grocery lists. When I saw the “Fat ‘Lil Notebook” at Target I cringed - could this possibly be something that they would ‘approve’ of if I picked it up for them? I went with the darkest colors that they had and left them on the dining room table - there was no way I was going to hand these to them and listen to them complain about them. Worse even - they’d fall in love with them and ask me to get more of them.
Mead Five Star Fat ‘Lil Neatbook
These are pretty nice little notebooks but it does take a little while to get used to them. The paper is college ruled so you can fit a good bit of information on the pages without having to flip it over and start a new one. Each notebook has 200 pages which is pretty amazing when you see the size of it - it is fat [hence the name] but are there really 200 sheets? I’m not so bored that I’d sit there and count the pages so I am taking Mead’s word for it. The notebook is spiral bound and the edges are clamped so unless you start playing around with them, they are going to stay locked in place so they don’t get caught on skin or clothing. This is important if kids are going to be using this because you never know when an accident could happen.
Personally I hate writing in spiral notebooks because the spine always gets in the way when I am writing. This one is no different, if I stay on the front page and the spine is on the left side then everything is fine but if I have the notebook open and writing on the reverse page, then things get pretty sloppy. The boys didn’t like these at all when they first saw them but after they used them for a while two of them loved then and two of them asked for cash so they could roam the aisles of the office supply store to find something better. I found these at Target for about $2.50 a piece, not exactly cheap but I guess they are charging for the name, number of pages and slick cover. And speaking of the cover - it’s a nice thick piece of plastic that protects the notebook and the front pages from getting ripped up or bent. chances are if this gets tossed in a backpack it will eventually get trashed but if you are careful with it, you’ll get to go through all 200 pages.
The size is the selling point here, five and a half inches by three and a half inches - small enough to fit in any backpack or knapsack but big enough to handle notes, lists or information. This is about an inch thick so it is pretty fat [hence the name] so make sure that this is something that you will be able to use or else it is going to be extra weight that you are hauling around. Like I said, the pages are college ruled and for some these lines are too small. The pages are perforated so you can rip them out without having little pieces of paper falling all over the place. I really wish Mead would have put a small pocket in the front of this or even on the back cardboard page - this would be a cool feature for things that you ripped out by mistake or for things that you need to add to notes. Since there’s no pocket to this you are pretty much stuck with using a rubber band to store loose pages - not exactly something that screams “Hey, I’m not a geek!”
The Bottom Line
This is a nice notebook to have in your vehicle - you never know when you are going to need something to write on and it’s big enough that you can’t miss it when you are looking for it. Two of the boys swear by these for their field trips and day camps, they can take notes on the fly without having to worry about having a place to sit or fumbling around with a binder or a book to write on. These are a little on the expensive side but as long as they are using them and like them, I’ll continue to buy them. I wish Mead would make one of these in an unlined or blank format - these would be nice to have for sketching out designs or when I get some brainstorm - it would be having to draw things out on napkins!
Five Star durable poly-covered notebooks are equipped with a Spiral Lock wire to prevent coil snags, pockets for paper storage and sheet perforations ...More at OfficeMax
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