Clever Fox is one of my favorite planner brands! I normally avoid sewn binding however the Clever Fox notebooks actually lay flat. The bright white paper is good quality too, especially for the affordable price point.

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There are 2 Clever Fox notebooks for bullet journaling. The dotted notebook which was their first edition, and the 2.0 version.

Clever Fox Dotted Notebook Comparison: Original versus 2.0 – which is better?

First let’s do a quick summary of the specs for each notebook. There’s a video and detailed comparison later in this post.

Clever Fox Dotted Notebook

As this was their first edition, I’ll be referring to this version as the ‘original’ throughout this comparison.

• Size: just over 5″ wide x 8.25″ high
• Vegan Leather Hardcover
• Sewn Binding
• Cover color options – purple, pink, neon yellow, blue, turquoise and black
• 120 GSM recycled paper
• 3 ribbon bookmarks
• Pocket folder
• 1 Sheet of rainbow stickers included
• No contents or symbol / key page
• Page numbers
• 127 dot grid pages
• 4mm dot grid spacing
• 30 dots horizontally, 49 dots vertically

Price: $13 USD + shipping on Amazon

Clever Fox Journal 2.0

• Size: 5.75″ wide x 8.5″ high
• Vegan Leather Hardcover
• Sewn Binding
• 5mm dot grid spacing
• Cover color options – rose gold, gold, light turquoise, turquoise, dark blue, light blue, black, grey, dark green, orange and amber yellow
• 120 GSM paper
• Pocket folder
• 3 ribbon bookmarks
• 1 Sheet of rainbow stickers included
• 3 contents / index pages
• 1 symbol / color key page
• Page numbers
• 155 dot grid pages
• 5mm dot grid spacing
• 27 dots horizontally, 40 dots vertically

Price: $18 USD + shipping on Amazon

Clever Fox Notebooks Comparison

To enlarge the screen of the video, click the square icon in the bottom right hand corner of the video (it will say ‘full screen’ when you hover your mouse over the icon).

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Mentioned in the video

• Row and column stencils (comparison of 5 brands)
• Dot grid notebook comparison (30 brands compared)
• Dimensions of the stickers that come with the Clever Fox notebooks are 1.5cm diameter

I purchased both the Original and the 2.0 version from Amazon.

Related post: Favorite planning supplies from Amazon (gift guide for planner & bullet journal lovers)

The Original Clever Fox is 1.7cm thick, the 2.0 version is 1.9cm thick. The cover is plain on the original version with only the Clever Fox brand logo. The 2.0 version has doodle images indented into the cover.

The dots in the 2.0 version are a much lighter grey and smaller, they fade into the background after you draw up your spread.

Read more: Rainbow Weekly spread using dot markers in the Clever Fox Journal 2.0

The margins between the dots and the edges of the pages differ.

Original version’s margins:

• 0.7cm between the top row of dots and the top edge of the page
• 1cm between the bottom row of dots and the bottom edge of the page
• 0.7cm between the edge of the dots and the edge of the page

Journal 2.0 version’s margins:

• 0.7cm between the top row of dots and the top edge of the page
• 0.6cm between the bottom row of dots and the bottom edge of the page
• 0.6cm between the edge of the dots and the edge of the page

The original is 5″ wide x 8.25″ high. The 2.0 version is wider at 5.75″ wide x 8.5″ high. I prefer the 2.0 version as there’s enough space to draw up 2 columns to do lists or do a 4 days per page grid layout. There’s not quite enough space to do this in the original dotted notebook.

Whenever I get a new dotted notebook I count the number of dots horizontally and vertically and put it on a sticky note at the front of the notebook. As you can see there is a different number of dots both horizontally and vertically between the notebooks. Despite the original version’s smaller page size, it has more dots because it’s grid is only 4mm versus the 2.0 version’s 5mm dot grid.

Both notebooks lay flat, no matter where you open the notebook.

Pen Test

Some of the pens used in the pen test:

• Papermate InkJoy ballpoint
• Papermate InkJoy gel
• Papermate flair UF
• Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.5
• Staedtler Triplus Fineliner 0.3
• Uniball Signo 0.7 Gel
• Sakura Ballsign 0.5
• Pilot pop’lol 0.7
• Marvy Japan Le Pen
• Sharpie Art Pen
• Pilot Frixion erasable
• Stabilo Point 88 fine

Some of the highlighters used to test:

• Stabilo boss
• Uni Propus Window
• Zebra Mildliner
• Staedtler Textsurfer
• Faber-castell
• Monami 601
• Tombow dot marker

Pen test for the 2.0 version (120 gsm paper)

Pen test for the original dotted notebook (120 gsm paper)

Both notebooks had some ghosting for marker pens and MAMBI stamps but did well with ballpoint, fine tip and gel pens. If you want something that has no show through for marker pens you’ll need to spend potentially double the cost (if not more) of these Clever Fox Notebooks for a 160 GSM notebook.

160 GSM notebooks reviews

• Vivid Scribbles Dot Grid Notebook (bleedproof 140GSM paper!)
• Archer and Olive Dot Grid Notebook (Is the 160 GSM Paper Worth the Hype?)
• Amanda Rach Lee (160 GSM paper)
• Esc Goods (160 GSM paper)
• Slow journal (160 GSM paper)

Similarities

• Pages lay flat on their own
• Pen loop
• Elastic band to keep everything closed
• Pocket folder
• Page numbers
• Bright white paper
• Results of the pen test (minor ghosting for marker pens)

Differences

In the 2.0 version there is 1 reference / key page and 3 contents pages. There are no contents pages in the original notebook.

• The original dotted notebook has a 4mm grid, the 2.0 notebook has 5mm
• The dot grid is a darker grey on the original and lighter grey on the 2.0
• More cover color options to choose from in the 2.0 version
• Dimensions (original is 5″ wide x 8.25″ high whereas the 2.0 version is 5.75″ wide x 8.5″ high)
• No. of dots on the grid (original has 30 dots horizontally x 49 dots vertically whereas the 2.0 version has 27 dots horizontally x 40 dots vertically)
• Number of pages (127 pages in the original, 155 pages in the 2.0 version)
• 2.0 version has 1 reference / key page and 3 contents pages. There are no contents pages in the original notebook

Which Clever Fox notebook do I prefer?

Definitely the 2.0 version! It’s only $5 USD extra but you get a more unique cover, more pages, larger page size, 5mm dot grid spacing and different colored ribbon bookmarks.

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