Five Star Flex Hybrid Notebinder, Red (28191)
From MeadWestvaco Consumer & Office Products
Flex Hybrid NoteBinder is the next generation in portable organization. This is the one that acts like a notebook and works like a binder, offering both increased capacity and carrying convenience! Outfitted with the patented Tech Lock spine, its rings open and close easily for quick customization—students and professionals can make their own choices for personally fitted, fundamental features. Add what you need and remove what you don't!
- Amazon Sales Rank: #14957 in Office Product
- Color: Red
- Brand: Five Star
- Model: 28191
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 11.25" h x 2.00" w x 11.50" l, 1.06 pounds
Such possibilities
Right out of the box, I like it. This Five Star NoteBinder is attractive and functional. Included are 2 NotePocket dividers, 3 NoteProtector dividers, 60 sheets of college ruled paper and 20 sheets of quad ruled paper. In it are all the added benefits of a notebook and binder in one.
COVER
The front and back cover is durable flexible plastic. The spine is a tough nylon material. This binder will take a beating.
The rings are mounted to the back cover. The front cover has three holes which slip over the rings. That allows the thickness of the notebinder to adjust to the amount of paper inside. Less paper = thinner NoteBinder.
Because the front cover travels freely over the rings, the front cover may be flipped over to the back. You can do that with a wire notebook, but try that with a binder!
DIVIDER NOTEPOCKETS
Two plastic dividers with pockets for loose papers. The pockets include a top flap to keep the papers from falling out and tabs for labeling the divider.
The front of the pocket includes a smaller clear pocket for index cards or smaller papers. The smaller pocket also includes a flap to keep from losing contents.
The NotePocket is one of my favorite features. It carries both small and large loose sheets securely while providing quick and easy access.
DIVIDER NOTEPROTECTORS
These are essentially plastic sheet protectors. Like the NotePockets, they also have a flap to keep contents from spilling out of the top and they also have tabs for labeling the divider. Unlike most sheet protectors, these sheet protectors are open on two sides, the top and the lefthand sides.
THE RINGS
The rings are made of flexible plastic and must be opened individually. They open easily and hold securely, but it is not as quick and smooth an operation as with a typical three ring binder.
The size of the rings limit the paper load to about 1 inch thick.
PROS:
+ attractive
+ thickness of the NoteBinder adjusts to thickness of the contents
+ durable flexible cover
+ cover flips to the back
+ includes pocket dividers
+ includes sheet protector dividers
+ includes college ruled paper
+ includes quad ruled paper
CONS:
- rings do not snap open quickly like typical binders
SUMMARY
These notebooks are great for students, especially older ones. It is well designed. I almost wish I was a student again so I can take full advantage of its possibilities. For now, it will be used to organize my children's schoolwork and projects.
Better than notebooks and binders, but not perfect
As a college student and a notebook junkie (for some girls it's shoes, for me it's notebooks) I knew I'd really be able to test this notebook to see if it was worth its stuff. After giving it the customary skim-through to see what it had, I proceeded to put it through not only the high school test but also the college test. Over the last few days, this notebook has been shoved into a backpack, yanked back out of a backpack, dropped from a variety of heights several times, sat on, bent, twisted, kicked, etc. Its pockets have been stuffed full and torn at. I've filled it with more paper than it's supposed to be able to handle. I've spilled water and other liquids on it intentionally, intentionally picked it up with cheese-cracker fingers, dropped it a few more times (right on the binder rings, and to my delight it took a good ten drops for one ring to open.)I tossed it about, doodled on it, scribbled on it, did just about everything I could think of to it. Well, except actually write in it. That I saved for later, because after making sure this notebook had a chance of surviving school (whether college or high school), I wanted to be able to use the notebook-binder as, well, a notebookinder.
My findings after undertaking this not-so-scientific study? This notebookinder is an extremely durable little sucker, more durable than a mere binder and more durable than a mere notebook. With normal binders, the rings become misaligned, dropping them is a guaranteed disaster, and the vinyl peels off the cover. Normal notebooks are prone to getting waterlogged in any number of circumstances, not to mention getting torn and bent and otherwise ruined.
But this Flex thing is brilliant. Not only are you less likely to ruin pages, if they are ruined, you can just take them out and replace them with new ones! And the binder itself seems as if it'll last an awfully long time, even the pockets (which are usually the first things to go for over-stuffing, packrat me.)
My main complaint with this product is that the rings aren't quite as fast to open, so if you were in a hurry, putting papers away in it would not be a fun chore. Also, if you have a tiny little college lecture hall desk, trying to balance it right in order to keep everything in the rings is also a bit of a chore.
Overall, though, I wish they had had these back in my high school days. Sure would have spared me a lot of heartache, headache, and embarrassment, but oh well. We can't always get what we want.
Space Saver
The no-nonsense Five Star Hybrid Note Binder has a front & back cover of double-ply plastic but no cardboard insert, so the covers are flexible. The binding edge is fabric, allowing the binder to be filled to about 1-3/4". Because it is fabric, the binding won't crack from constant bending back and forth (this happens to standard binders before the school year ends.) The standard 3 rings are flexible plastic and one side inserts deep into the other, providing a secure lock and eliminating the possibility of small fingers getting pinched when closing the rings. My binder came with 5 tabbed plastic dividers: two had pouches for index cards and three accepted inserts. Five labels were provided for the tabs. There was a small supply of lined paper and a smaller supply of graph paper - a nice bonus since most binders don't include paper at all. One big advantage is that the binder compresses to the depth of its contents; a fairly empty binder will be almost flat, which is a nice feature if the binder is going into a backpack or briefcase. Another advantage is that the front cover folds completely behind the back cover, taking up less desk or lap space and allowing one to comfortably write on the paper while it is inside the binder. There are no pockets inside the front or back covers, but we've found that purchasing separate 3-hole pocket folders works better for us because built-in pockets rip away from the binder and tear the binder cover in the process. The colors are true to the picture.
