Big can sometimes be beautiful as well....

We have seen and reviewed many A5 Filofax Organisers over the years, they come in a variety of styles and colours. I'm sure most enthusiastic Philofaxers own one organiser in A5 size.  But you can go bigger than A5, well in Europe at least. Sadly the A4 isn't sold in the US and you really are missing out folks.

I proudly present to you my latest Filofax acquisition, (roll of drums) the Filofax Classic A4 Organiser..... in black Italian Leather.

Yes it's the big one... paper size is 297 mm by 210 mm or put another way twice the size of an A5 (210 x 148 mm). And to show you the difference here is the A4 alongside my Finsbury A5.

The A5 looks almost Personal size and the A4 like A5 in the above picture... but to show even more of a comparison. Here's the three together.

There is a sutle difference with the A4 compared to other Filofax organisers, it doesn't use the 3 + 3 ring combination. Instead it is just a standard 4 ring organiser with the rings spaced at 80mm apart. So stationary and punches are cheap as chips. I bought a 4 hole punch in my local supermarket for €10, it is of metal construction and should serve me for a few years. Paper is also available off the shelf in most stores.

 

The inside cover has 6 card slots, a 3.5 diskette slot (how quaint!) and a CD slot, as well as a full height pocket behind the slots. There are two pen loops, one on the front cover and one on the back.

As you will see in the pictures below, the standard fill it comes with size is just like any other size... but everything is just bigger and has lots of space to write things in. They haven't attempted to add more lines in just give you more space to write in instead. And the rings don't get in the way at all.

A two page per week in vertical format came with the organiser, as you can see plenty of room for appointments and notes/to-dos each weekday. It's in multi-language format but that doesn't waste too much space on this size of page!

The address pages give you plenty of space for 4 or 5 phone numbers in addition to Name, Contact, Address and Email Address. The inclusion of contact I suppose shows that it's intended for business use.

 
The To-do page is a slightly different format to others I have seen, two lines per item, so plenty of room to write quite detailed descriptions, I often struggle to work out some of my slightly cryptic notes in my other to-do lists!

Very detailed expenses pages, something I'm not a frequent user of at present.

Some ordinary ruled note pages. 

Inside the back cover there is a A4 writing pad.

I will adding some plain paper for sketches and drawings, as well as some reference information I have in my A5 but it will be printed full size rather than reduced size. 

So you must be wondering....why??? Well I have my reasons for buying this organiser.. please note the word 'excuse' was not used...!!

When I wrote a post about the A4 size back in September, I wasn't trying to justify purchasing one myself at the time, I was just exploring how that size would work for me and others. After that was posted I heard of at least one Philofaxer trying out the A4 for her work organiser and she loved the fact that she could print things off without fiddling around with booklet printing and cutting pages, it was print, punch, place in organiser.. job done. So my post had convinced one person.

In our what size do you own poll in November last year, the A4 only got two votes out of the 164 cast!

When I saw an A4 at the Neal Street Store the other week, I suspect it was a reminder and it got me thinking again.

Another reason for buying the A4 was to own one to try it out and to share the experience with you the readers, I think to add credibility to any post about this size you have had to had owned one and used it, and the same goes for any size I suppose. So I guess it was a fore (pun intended!) gone conclusion that I would buy one this size eventually.

Am I actually going to use this one? I think so, it fits the space on my desk to my left normally occupied by my A5 so I will be giving it a try that's for sure in the New Year. Since ordering it I've found some very nice diary templates on line too!

One amusing idea that I've not tried with the A4 yet. You might recall my lesson in origami on how to fold an A3 printed map in to an A5 organiser. Well A3 will fold in to A4 very easily in the same way that A4 folds in to an A5 organiser... but how about A2 in to A4... truly huge!! A2 is 594 x 420 mm, the size often used for building plans! Not something I will have a need for, or a printer to print that size.

So far I've not said anything negative, which you might find a little false. Yes the A4 is big but not that bulky, it has 25 mm rings, where as my A5 Finsbury is fitted with 30 mm, I will get the scales out to compare the weight once I've added a few more of my own pages, the comparison wouldn't be valid at the moment.  The number of pages available for the A4 from Filofax is a little limited which for some people might be a downside. But given the ease of being able to print off your own pages for this size then this limitation isn't so much of a problem.  I will give an honest up date on the A4 once I've had a chance to use it for a few weeks.

Yes the Classic is quite expensive to buy, but there are cheaper A4's in the range. I love the detail in the finish of the Classic and I would love this model in smaller sizes too!

I look forward to reading your comments, good or bad.. !!