These Get A 4.0 for Efficiency, Durability and Organization – Mead Five-Star 1-Subject College-Rule Notebook
Written: Jun 24 '03 (Updated Jul 30 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Variety of colors, sturdy manila pocket, single subject, college rule.
Cons: Expensive when compared to other notebooks.
The Bottom Line: When you want the best from a single subject, college rule notebook – Mead Five Star line is the best pick.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Five Star Mead Trend Notebooks |
In the world of notebooks you'll find many options to choose from; college or standard rule, single subject or multi subject, cardboard or plastic cover, with or without internal pockets, regular sized or memo – and once you’ve got your choices narrowed down you still have to pick a company … the choices are endless. The Mead notebooks are a great choice regardless of the style you are looking for, they last a long time, have bound metal spirals and some even have perforated pages. The most popular one in this house is the Mead College Ruled I Subject Notebook [also called Single Subject] followed by the monstrous 5 subject Mead notebook. When my boys grew out of the regular standard lined notebooks I was a little hesitant about them using the college ruled notebooks, none of them have the best penmanship and I had visions of me pulling my hair out trying to read their writing between the tiny lines. Thankfully they use these mostly for their own notes and when they are on field trips or at day camp. It sure beats having to carry around several notebooks or worrying about running out of paper. My boys also said that since they started bring these to the day camps – kids have stopped asking them for paper, I guess the college ruled lines aren’t popular with everyone.
Five-Star 100 Sheet College Ruled 1-Subject Notebook
Try saying that fast five times! These are a staple for any student and with the inclusion of different colored covers you get a bit of variety – or simply an easy way to color code the notebooks to your classes. Some teachers and professors demand [yes demand] that you have a dedicated notebook for their class. It seems like snobbery but when you think about it – it does make sense. You can’t use the old "I left it in the other class" excuse. Since my boys are homeschooled we don’t have to deal with that but generally they like to have different notebooks for different things – even if they are the same subject. My oldest has three for science [one for space, one for plants and animals and one for everything else]. I am pretty lucky that they aren't as tough on notebooks as they are on other school supplies but even if they were, I am sure the Mead ones could handle most of what they'd dish out. One of the best things about the Mead Five Star series is the metal spiral binding. The ends are bound into the spine so there's no chance of the ends catching on skin or clothing – a definite plus where kids are involved.
Styles Available
The Five Star 100 Count College Rule notebook offers you several different styles to choose from. There's the basic notebook with your choice of colored cardboard covers [burgundy, black, blue, red, teal and orange] or the plastic cover in the same colors. Both come with a single storage pocket, perforated pages and the above mentioned metal spiral binding. The price difference between the cardboard and plastic covers is only about .50 cents so if you plan on using your notebook a lot, it makes sense to get the plastic cover so it will stand up to a lot more use. I’ve purchased both in the past and in all honesty, the plastic covers are a lot nicer than the cardboard ones and for an extra .50 cents it's really worth it.
Price
These aren’t cheap, I'll say that right up front. These can set you back as much as $3.99 - $4.99 for a single notebook. If you purchase these from an office supply store you might pay a little less for them but your best deal is to try and find them in the sealed multi packs where you can get three of the plastic cover single subject notebooks for about $7.99. If you aren't serious about your notebooks or don’t lug them around everywhere with you then chances are you won’t need something as high quality and top shelf as the Mead Five Star brand – but you do get what you pay for when purchasing these notebooks.
Durability
Unless you drop them in the mud [had that happen] or spill a can of soda on them [did that too] these will stand up to a lot of use and abuse. The plastic covered ones will take a bit more of a beating than the cardboard ones but both are dependable and strong – and the metal spine never warps or bends. The pages are thick so writing with gel pens and ballpoints isn’t an issue but just like most notebook paper, markers to tend to bleed through. Using pencils on the pages is great unless you have to do a lot of erasing, then you might get some ripped pages or holes. The insert pockets are made of thick manila and hold up well under moderate use but they aren’t very practical for more than a few sheets of paper – anything more than that and you get a bulge that makes writing in the notebook a bit of a pain.
The Bottom Line
The Mead Five Star line as a whole is great but the single subject ones are best for people who like to have a dedicated notebook for each subject or topic. There are a wide variety of different styles to choose from including standard line, college rule and quadrille [fancy term for graph paper] as well as one, two, three and five subject notebooks. Some of the Five Star notebooks come with a planner or schedule on the inside cover and others have a section printed on the back cover. There are a lot of different options available within the Five Star family so be sure to check out all your options before you make your selection. Also, look for the back to school specials, this is a great way to pick up multi packs or in store “buy one – get one free” specials.
For more information about the Mead family of products you can visit their official site at: www.meadweb.com. They have some very cool sections for kids to cruise through, check out the latest products and get some cool downloads. You can get downloads of calendars and holidays that can be added to different sized notebooks – well worth looking into [and it’s free]! You can also download Mead software, templates and designs, again, all for free.
As always, thanks for the visit!
^V^ Freak ^V^
© 2003 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
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