I recently completed a journal, a cheap $10 Paperage I bought from Amazon last year, and decided to try a few new notebooks with better quality paper. I tried Moleskine, Leuchtturm1917, Jumping Fox, and Rhodia. I will outline my findings below, but let me get to the point:
Rhodia vastly outclasses everything else.
It is pointless to buy anything other than a Rhodia Webnotebook unless you need something less than $20, in which case you're probably better off sticking with Paperage.
There's absolutely no comparison. Rhodia's 90 gsm Brushed Vellum paper is the smoothest, most beautifully textured thing I have ever put my pens to. It is absorbent without bleed-through, and it is smooth without being waxy. It is the only notebook paper that won't fray your felt tips or clog your rollers or catch your nibs. If you set a smooth thin line, that line will remain thin and smooth. Regardless of your writing instrument (unless you're using Sharpies or Copics), Rhodia paper will give you the best results.
This is my summary of the other notebooks:
- Moleskine has always been overpriced mediocrity. Their hardcovers are too hard; their softcovers too thin. They have pretty nice construction, but their paper is only slightly less coarse and bleedy than the average notebook, including far cheaper ones. I also don't like their size, being about half an inch narrower than other notebooks, presumably to fit more easily into pockets... but who carries around A5 notebooks in their pocket? I did—when I wore JNCOs in the early 2000's.
- Leuchtturm1917 are weird... their construction is very nice, and their paper nice and smooth... but also single-ply thin. Even regular Bic rollerballs leave an unusable impression on the backside of every page. I can't use anything other than pencil unless I want to reduce my page count in half.
- Jumping Fox Design notebooks are a heartbreak. They are obviously a labor of love... by someone who doesn't yet know much about book manufacturing. I was eager to try them, as they had desirable features few others offer: 120 gsm paper, numbered pages with a front index, textured fabric covers, foil sides. Unfortunately, the paper is thick but waxy, and coarse as rock and about as absorbent. It trades worrying about bleed-through with worrying about smudging. The paper grain runs the wrong way, so the edges warp with the elastic band. The spine is flat instead of round, which OK, stylistic choice, but it also lists at around 80 degrees instead of 90. Overall, I get big Baron Fig vibes from this book: beautiful in theory, underwhelming in practice.
- Paperage was my previous notebook, and I just want to mention for the price they are actually very good. If I didn't care about the enormous difference in quality with Rhodia, or wanted to save $10, I would've just bought another. They are between $5 and $10 cheaper than everything else on this list, and perform about the same, just without the worst features of each.... so really, superior to everything except Rhodia, especially for the price.
- Rhodia notebooks just absolutely obliterate everything else. I will still try new notebooks out of curiosity, but I will never buy anything else otherwise. In construction, look, and performance, nothing even comes close. I would pay $10-$20 more for this level of quality. That they sit at the same price point as Moleskine is nuts. Rhodia needs to replace Moleskine as the household-name notebook.