(To win the Rhodia R pad used in the review, see the entry form at the bottom of this post.)

For many of us, Rhodia’s wonderful paper and minimalistic design mean their notepads are often our go-to writing papers. I’ve been using their pads for a long time but always kept to the basic lined top-stapled pad, eventually migrating to the wire bound rule notepad and of late, the dot Pad which is many a notebooker’s favorite Rhodia.

Let me say, knowing that I may commit blasphemy in the eyes and ears of the Rhodia dot pad faithful, to say that the Rhodia R Premium line may be a notch above the beloved dot Pads. Unfortunately, the Rhodia R line only comes in ruled or blank. If it were available in a dot Pad layout, I might never use another black-cover, white-paper, dot Pad again. For comparison, the R Premium and the dot Pad were the A5, or about 6″ x 8″ sizes.

In my pen and graphite tests, the R Premium performed identically to the dot Pad. I suspect there will be less show-through with the heavier R Premium paper, but in terms of writing it’s the same silky-smooth stuff. That said, I liked the slightly heavier paper experience a little better. For graphite users who like a little tooth, the R Premium performs the same as the dot Pad, i.e., no tooth, just a buttery-smooth experience.

So is the difference in the R Premium worth it for the slight extra cost?

The R Premium does feel like a nicer pad (but that’s not saying the dot Pad isn’t nice). The R Premium has heavier paper, a soft and smooth cover, that stunning black outside/orange inside cover, and for my tastes, gorgeous ivory paper. I won’t try to talk dot grid lovers into accepting lines, so that’s probably going to be the decider for a lot of users. But if you want something that makes you feel a little more pampered, a little richer writing experience on that smooth ivory paper, then you can’t go wrong with the Rhodia R Premium line. Your fountain pen, Blackwing, .3 gel pen, or rollerball may never let you go back to any other paper after you let them loose on the R Premium notepad.

Whenever I can, I like to giveaway the reviewed item to one lucky reader or follower of papernery (and in this case, sorry, but U.S. addresses only). Follow the instructions below and you can win the review pad, warmed up for you via my one-page ink/graphite testing! Giveaway closes Sunday, August 2, 8 p.m. EST.