VELA Series-A2, Advanced Computation Laboratory Notebook, 11.75 x 9.25 inches, 160 Pages, Softcover, Adhesive Lay-Flat Binding, Class-2 ‘Optimized’ Notebook (5x5 Grid Variation)

Nice notebook. I'm an engineer and have used lab notebooks of this sort for many years. The Vela does offer some improvements over the standard cardboard bound ones. I waited until I had a few months of experience before posting a review. First, the things I like about it:1. Sized large enough so that you can tape in 8.5x11" sheets for reference.2. The index pages at the front are inspired. I often refer back to older notebooks and the index provides a way to help prevent the page-by-page search for information.3. The 5x5 grid is nice, and the light blue on white paper is very unobtrusive.4. The texture of the cover coating is pleasant to handle and grip.5. The paper is substantial and limits bleed-through when I use a fountain pen.6. This really does lay pretty flat. It improves with use, as well.7. Reasonable price.There are a couple of things that I don't like quite as well:1. After using for a few months (and carrying everywhere), the corners have a tendency to curl up. Certainly no worse than cardboard, though.2. The light gray section on the cover does have a tendency to pick up stains and tends not to look too nice after heavy use.Overall, this is the nicest notebook of this type I have had occasion to use. If they could consider rounding off the corners a little, I think it could be slightly improved, but I don't have any hesitation about recommending this.

***********************edit*******************In response to this review, the founder of VELA emailed me with some of their manufacturing statistics. He acknowledged an issue with a part of the binding process and they pulled the entire A2 stock from amazon while they internally address the problem. Talk about customer service and integrity.It says a lot about a company that recognizes their own problems. I will give the A2 another shot once they fix the binding issue and sort through the existing stock.The hardcover S2 I bought is absolutely perfect.**********************Original Review*********************For a notebook that has "Made in the USA" stamped on the cover, you would think they would at least try to make sure USA was a byword for quality.When I opened mine up, the first thing I saw was page 11. Huh? Okay, maybe it was a neat way to avoid single digit page numbers, you know, to avoid data entry errors. So I kept flipping. Paper quality was nice, the cover had that sexy soft-touch-rubber feel. When I got to the end, I was greeted with page 150. Okay, wasn't this supposed to be 160 pages? Even if you counted the endpages and cover, it was about a dozen short. So I wen't back to double check against the product listing, and sure enough, 160 pages including a table of contents. Well fancy that. Someone forgot to glue in 2 whole folios. For a $14, softcover notebook, I don't expect it to make me dinner, but I would have liked to get what I paid for.It wasn't even like the binding was funny, or off-kilter, it looked perfect from the outside apart from being thinner than normal. So the binding machine was fed the wrong number of folios, which is an assembly line problem, and one they don't have QC measures in place for. I'm hesitant to order another, knowing it'll probably come out of the same carton, off the same machine, out of the same run.Your mileage may vary, but I've never really had this problem with cheapo $3 notebooks from Thailand (China paper is hit or miss), and for $3, I can accept some binding errors. If I'm buying USA made to support USA workers, I expect them to do their jobs.Hoping the hardcover version I ordered won't be the same, that'll be done on a different machine at least.

I am an engineering student, and I have been in search of the perfect notebook for some time. Until now my gold standard was an Ampad or TOPS buff computation book (they're cross-branded) for twice the price, and I am quite happy I've found a better notebook for $14.I was nervous to make this purchase, because I had the silly idea that quality was a function of price, but it's not. Reading up on VELA, it seems these guys are actively trying to keep their price point as low as possible, and resent the $20+ mark of other technical notebooks. The paper in their notebook is of comparable quality to those other premium notebooks, but the print quality is a notch better -- the precise blue lines in the VELA notebook do not vary in width (thick enough to be helpful but faint enough to never interfere with fine pencil work), the page numbers are clearly printed, and the user index pages are minimalistic and highly functional.The binding on the Vela notebook will lay flat before long, but not immediately, whereas the double spiral of the more expensive notebooks allows you to write and tape right up to the edge of the inside margin. The tradeoff here is that with the VELA you get a much more sturdy, professional-looking binding that seems like it will last a lot longer (no possibility of rusting over the years, won't tear at paper as the notebook is handled, etc).One of the nicest features of this notebook is one which I didn't even know I needed: The 4-page user index is now indispensable to me. I'm actually using my notebooks as reference now instead of my textbooks, because I can look up topics directly in my index instead of having to flip through dozens of pages to find them. The label areas on the front and spine of the notebooks also make them a lot more useful on a shelf.I also feel compelled to mention, as reviewers of VELA's gray notebook have already noted, that the cover definitely feels like dolphin.The only two changes I would like to see in this notebook are rounded corners (the right corners are already starting to catch on my bag and padfolio and wear down) and a buff version.Finally, 5 squares per inch allows me to get more on each page, or to be more precise in technical drawing, than the usual 4 squares per inch.