How Flexible Is The Leather Flex?

Thank you to Helen Fennell for her review of the new Leather Flex cover. 

The Delightful Mr F has had a Flex to use at work pretty much since they first came out. He is not a user of a traditional Filofax, but really liked the Flex and it works really well for him. I had been wondering about one for work too. For me it is best to use a bound notebook rather than a binder for meeting notes etc, but I also have some loose lead bits and pieces I need to carry with me, which fall out if tucked inside a normal notebook.

Then I saw that City organiser had the A5 leather Flex covers in stock, and I thought it would be rude not to buy one!

I chose the blackcurrant leather cover. The cover is lovely, the colour is a very regal looking purple, and the leather is nice, and has that lovely leather smell. It is quite floppy, which I guess it needs to be for this purpose.

The layout inside is slightly different from the First Edition covers. The pockets on the left hand side are horizontal instead of vertical.

It still has the large slots on either side of the folder, and a small slot for a jotter pad.

One of the pockets on the left hand side expands so you can slip your iPhone, or in my case my Blackberry into it. It fits well, and I can see this being very useful around the office as I need to carry
my phone with me.

The folder comes with a pen loop, a jotter pad and a notebook. The pen loop is mounted on a piece of gray card, and I can’t help feeling that this is a bit of a disappointment compared to the lovely leather binder. Although I am not sure what other design solution there is. When the loop is slotted into the opening on the left hand side, it sticks put a long way and looks awful. However, when slotted into the outside pockets, it goes in much further and looks much better.

I had always thought that the Jotter pad looked a bit pointless, but now I have one I find myself using it for “things I must do today without fail” lists. I’ll see how it goes, but I may well adopt that permanently.

The notebooks I don’t like at all, and neither does The Delightful Mr F. They aren’t very good quality, especially compared to the Moleskines I normally use.  Mr F uses hardback Moleskines in his first edition version. They are a tight fit, but they do go in the slots. I tried to get a hardback Moleskine in my leather one, and again it will fit in the outside slots, but it is very tight and I would be worried about damaging the leather. Instead I am going to use Moleskine Volants which fit easily.

When everything is in place it is very thin and neat. I haven’t’ yet quite worked out my system, so when I have, hopefully Steve will let me share it with you.

On the whole I am very impressed with the cover. It feels nice to use and I think it will stand up to the wear and tear of the office. I’d love to see how other Flexers use their Flexes.

Thank you Helen for your detailed review, some interesting changes they have made.