If you're considering giving this notebook product a try, see this first and think twice

[A Smug Dill]

 

I added one of these to my shopping cart, so that the total value of the products would go past a particular threshold to trigger a discount offer and qualify the order for free shipping. It wasn't exactly cheap, but also not anywhere near expensive for a 256-page A5 notebook, and it was listed at a lower price (than it is now) at the time, with further stackable discounts plus a 15% cashback offer through a third-party site in play. If it promises to be resistant to line width spreading and ink bleed-through, how bad can it be?

 

When it finally arrived and I took it out of the consolidated shipment from AliExpress (which is getting to be messier with almost every package I receive), the notebook flopped in a way I've never seen a ≥200-page notebook with 80gsm paper flop. I didn't even have to take the item out of its (torn) plastic sleeve to know I've been scammed.

 

 

(That's a downsized version of the image I sent AliExpress as supporting evidence for the dispute I raised. I got issued a full refund reasonably promptly, and they told me not to bother with returning the item in the post.)

 

So, buyer beware.

[dbs]

Come on, just 9 dollars!

[inkstainedruth]

If it's a junky as ASD described?  It's not worth $2.  And I don't know whether you're talking US dollars or Australian dollars at that (or what the current exchange rate between them is).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: When someone first tipped me off to the Miquelrius A5 journals, I paid IIRC $15.99 apiece for the first ones I ordered from their US distributor -- and those were 600 page ones.  Sadly, though, they don't seem to make those anymore.

[A Smug Dill]

11 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

If it's a junky as ASD described?

 

I pulled the notebook out of the clear plastic bag this morning (to look for a brand, or manufacturer's name or mark, on it… nada), and while I had it out, I tested it for another one of its marketing claims:

 

That claim is also false. The cover is just uncoated, thicker black paper with the texture of kraft paper, water does not bead on its surface when splashed, and when I stuck it under a slow-running tap, it apparently absorbed some moisture that cannot simply be pat dried with a fresh sheet of absorbent paper towel, leaving a solid shape of where the water touched the notebook cover.

 

20 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

It's not worth $2.  And I don't know whether you're talking US dollars or Australian dollars at that (or what the current exchange rate between them is).

 

The effective price to me was US$5.38, for the 256-page A5 notebook. AliExpress is now making it harder than ever for me to track and work out which currency exchange rate was applied (by my credit card provider, not AliExpress) on the day for particular orders, by moving away from PayPal (to which AliExpress used to submit order/content details for charges) to Google Pay. However, given that AliExpress issued me with a full refund yesterday, and a credit of A$8.47 from AliExpress appeared in my card's list of transactions, I think it's fair to assume it cost me approximately that amount in the first place. (That's not strictly accurate, because a different currency exchange rate would have been applicable on the day the order was placed, some three weeks ago.)

 

The price for the item on AliExpress today is higher by more than 10%.

 

Considering that I have several Nakabayashi Yu-Sari 192-page A5 notebooks (retail price being ¥800+tax in the Japanese domestic market) that cost me less than that per unit to acquire, no, this unbranded Chinese notebook is definitely not worth A$8.47 to me. But A$2 as a test unit for experimentation only, and not any proper/normal use of a notebook?  Hmmm, maybe, maybe not.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the updated information.  

I'll admit that I've never ordered anything from AliExpress, but have been jerked around a few times by vendors on eBay and by a third party vendor on Amazon.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[finzi]

On 5/5/2025 at 7:07 PM, dbs said:

Come on, just 9 dollars!

There’s a principle at stake though. If Dill had wanted a notebook of poorer quality, they would have bought something listed as such, but they wanted the item that was described. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I would have reported it to AE as well. I’m glad that AE were so responsive @A Smug Dill