SEQES Dotted Hardcover Notebook
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I reviewed the Archer and Olive notebook earlier this year and was really disappointed in how it handled fountain pens, so I’ve been looking for a good alternative. I recently watched a YouTube comparison of a few different 160gsm notebooks, and the winner was this SEQES dotted hardcover notebook, aka the QiHeng notebook. After watching the comparison I decided to give the winner a try. I purchased my notebook from Amazon. It arrived quickly with a nice boxed packaging, some page flags and a ballpoint.
The details:
The notebook measures 5.7’’ x 8.2’’ x 0.9” and features a grey linen cover, elastic closure, pen loop and two bookmarks. The one thing that stuck out to me was that the pen loop is secured with a metal stud rather than just glued in. I thought it would interfere with how I use it, but it I didn’t even notice it while using the notebook.
The paper is white, 160gsm sturdy paper, similar to card-stock. It has a light 5mm dot grid and rounded corners.
The dot grid is nice and light-the dots don’t interfere with use.
Fountain Pens:
All of the pen/ink combos I tried had almost no show through and no bleeding. The juiciest broad nib was the one that had some show through, as well as the large swab. There was a little bit of feathering in the broadest nib, but other than that the paper handled everything well.
Pencils and Gel Pens:
The paper handled all of the gel pens, pencils and markers well except the sharpie which had some bleeding.
The Seqes notebook is on the left, and the Archer and Olive notebook I reviewed previously is on the right. They are very similar in almost every way except the paper and the price-the Seqes handles fountain pens so much better than the Archer and Olive, and does it at half the price too.
Overall, I enjoyed this notebook for both fountain pens and gel pens. I’ve been using this notebook for a while now, and find myself reaching for it often.
Disclaimer: I purchased this product myself, and all photos and opinions are my own. There is an affiliate link on this page but this post is not sponsored in any way.