Baron Fig Confidant Hardcover Notebook review

I’ve always been a fan of notebooks. They are great for keeping in one place all of your jotting, journaling, doodling, to-do listings, thought capturing, inventing and on and on. I’ve tried several different notebooks over the years, and my favorite had always been the venerable Moleskine. But I’m also a fan of the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, and while searching through it quite a while back I stumbled upon a campaign for the Baron Fig Confidant Hardcover notebook.  It had a clean look and interesting dimensions, so I became a backer and pledged for one. Baron Fig has since become a successful company and has launched additional products, but their Confidant notebook remains their flagship. Let’s check it out!  Gadget on!

Options

The Baron Fig Confidant Hardcover Notebook is available in the following cover colors:

• Light Gray (reviewed here)
• Charcoal

And in the following sizes and page counts:

• Pocket (small) – 3.5 x 5 inches, 160 pages
• Flagship (medium; reviewed here) – 5.4 x 7.7 inches, 192 pages
• Plus (large) – 7 x 10 inches, 208 pages

It is also available with the following page types:

• Ruled (reviewed here)
• Dot Grid
• Blank

Packaging

The Confidant Hardcover’s packaging was a burgundy-colored sturdy cardboard box with a nesting lid and tray design that protects the notebook very well.  The front of the box features a prominent but simple artist’s depiction of the product inside the box, a Ruled Confidant Hardcover Notebook.

The rear of the box maintains the simplicity of the front and includes a few brief thoughts about the product inside.  At this point, I was pretty excited to open it.

Opening the box and removing the contents did not disappoint.  I was immediately taken by the Confidant Hardcover’s appearance, and things just got better from there.

Features, Functions, and Performance

As mentioned above, I was immediately impressed with its look and feel.  I liked the gray, textured cover and the size.

Opening the cover, there was simply a burgundy rectangle for the owner to write whatever it is that they want to write.  Could be your name, contact info, volume or edition number, a sketch of your dog—it’s up to you.

One of the Confidant Hardcover’s features that I appreciated was its “lay flat” design.  I don’t think I did a great job of demonstrating this feature in the image above, but rest assured, the two halves of the notebook do indeed lay flat.

One thing I noticed about the Confidant was that, after fully opening the lay-flat cover for the first time, the cover didn’t want to lay completely flat against the rest of the pages with the cover closed.  Not really a big issue to me, but since the Confidant doesn’t have a built-in elastic band to keep it closed like many similar notebooks, this could be annoying to some folks.

There are two things to note in the above photo.  First, the texture of the Confidant’s fabric cover. Although the Confidant is indeed a hardcover, it has a cloth/fabric exterior. Additionally, the Confidant, like many notebooks, includes an integrated bookmark in a bright yellow color.

As mentioned above, I think Confidant is a nice size and feels good in the hand.  In fact, the fabric texture on the cover helps give a bit of grip to it.

Because the Moleskine notebook is so popular and considered by many to be the “gold standard” in notebooks, I thought it would be useful to include a bit of a comparison between the Baron Fig Confidant Hardcover with the Moleskine Large Ruled Notebook.  As seen in the image above, the footprint dimensions of the notebooks are slightly different.  The Confidant Hardcover, on the left, is 5.4 inches wide X 7.7 inches tall, while the Moleskine Large Notebook is 5 inches wide by 8.25 inches tall.  In addition, the cover material is different as well.  The Confidant is more like a gray cloth or fabric, while the Moleskine is the recognizable smooth black leather-like material (I’m not sure if it’s real leather, but I suspect not).

In the image above, the Confidant Hardcover is on the top, with the Moleskine on the bottom.  The Confidant’s pages are thicker than the Moleskine’s.  in fact, I found that, depending on the type of ink used, the Confidant seemed to have a much lower risk of ink bleed-through compared to the Moleskine.

In the above photo, the Confidant is again on the top, with the Moleskin on the bottom.  Both have integrated bookmarks, but I think I prefer the Confidant’s wider, more boldly-colored one.  The Confidant also had a bit lighter and more subdued lines on its pages.

Conclusion

I’ll just come out and say it: I’m a big fan of Baron Fig’s products and their Confidant Notebook in particular.  I like its size, color and texture and its lay-flat design is handy as well.  Can you find these features in other, similar notebooks?  To a large extent, yes; however, there is just something I really like about the Confidant.  In addition, the Baron Fig Confidant is available in two colors, three page types, and three sizes.  If you are in the market for a new notebook, I would encourage you to give the Baron Fig Confidant a look.

Update 5/1/20

I’m a big fan of Baron Fig and also a big fan of their Confidant notebook. I liked it so much that I bought another as my notebook/journal for the following year. Great product.

Source: The product in this review was purchased with the reviewer’s own funds. Please visit Baron Fig at BaronFig.com for more info or to order. You can find some of the products on Amazon too.