Quo Vadis ABP2 daily planner

This is a planner I've had my eye on for years and years but have only just now gotten around to ordering it.

This is the European version of this diary which is printed in six languages.

I like the format with the timed column at the left and designated space for notes. It's the perfect size for a day per page planner: 12 by 17 cm (4 3/4 by 6 3/4 inches, the same size as the QV Textagenda and Notor). And it has the super-smooth white Quo Vadis paper that I love. Click on photos to enlarge.

But I'm wondering if all the languages will annoy me. I might highlight the English days and months to make it easier to find dates when flipping through the book.  I do like that holidays are indicated on the day spaces. Moon phases are too, although you don't see it on this page.

I love the timed column at the left with times from 7am through 9 pm with lines for the half hours and lines before 7am for early morning reminders. I like seeing my day chronologically as a vertical column so I think this format will work really well for me.  The Notes section at the side will be great for lists and notes.

At the bottom of the page there's a space for reminders, and month calendars.

 Some other features of this diary:

 The personal information page is multi-language.

 There is a page to note school holidays, and an annual reference calendar.

At the back of the book there is an annual calendar for the following year. Then there are the awesome Quo Vadis maps of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Benelux, the British Isles, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and all of Europe. I love the maps!

 At the back of the book are lists of public holidays for all the countries this diary covers.

Something that may or may not be an issue for me is the tiny spacing of the lines. I have shown them here alongside a Moleskine day per page diary.

The Moleskine ruling is 6 mm, which is pretty standard and is easy to write in. You can see the ABP2 lines are miniscule by comparison. Which isn't a bad thing, because I can fit a lot more writing on the page and it allows the schedule column to have a lot more timed lines.

The lines are tiny. I measure the ruling at 3.5 mm.

 To be honest I'm not worried about the ruling, I think it will be fine.

But during the process of taking these photos I did discover something that does really bother me. The book doesn't stay open on its own, which is unlike every other Quo Vadis planner I've ever used.  I was extremely disappointed to discover this because part of the joy of a Quo Vadis, besides the glorious paper, is the book stays open on its own for easy writing and reference.

So to figure out why, I compared it to my Quo Vadis Textagenda which is the exact same size and has the same paper.  Below I have compared the bindings and you can see the difference.

Textagenda stays open on its own. Binding is flexible.

ABP2 must be held flat. Binding is not flexible.

ABP2 when it's not being held open.

This really bothers me a lot. I don't think the book will stay open on its own even with training because of the way it's bound. I guess I'll have to hold it open with a binder clip or something.  This makes me really sad because I was SO excited about this planner and thought it would be The One for 2013!  But the not staying open is a huge disappointment.

So I ordered up the Quo Vadis ABP1, which has the same column + notes daily format but is 5 1/4 by 8 1/2 inches instead. The lines will be larger, and I'm hoping it stays open on its own. As far as I know the ABP1 is only available in the US, so I had it sent to my mom who is coming to visit me soon so she will bring it with her. I don't know how I'll feel about the larger book, usually that size is too large and heavy for me to carry around but I'm hoping the soft cover will make it light enough. We'll see.

I might still use this book, because the size is perfect. If I can get around the lack of flatability I think I'd love this planner.

I ordered this planner from Quo Vadis UK and the shipping was super-fast.

Dang it!  Just when I thought I'd found The One, it doesn't stay open!  The search continues...