24 June 2013

Oh Wait Here's Another One.... Nurse!!!

First of all, thanks to Filofax and Jess from The Ideas Network for sending me this scrumptious organizer to review!


With vibrant colors inspired by Latin America brought to life in soft deluxe leather, the new Filofax Calipso veritably screams summer. Featuring a fashionable contrasting croco-embossed closure, this binder is as eye catching as it is easy to use….like a bright, cheery sundress that looks great on a blazing summer day, but is secretly cool and comfortable all the while.


In my enthusiasm to move into the Calipso, it appears I tossed the inserts that came with it into the Never Never. As you know, I typically use alternative inserts in all of my planners but I had meant to hang onto the stock inserts this time, knowing I would be doing this review, so that I could provide you with an “Unboxing” section to start things off. Rarely one to do things the easy way, I hunted high and low and have absolutely no idea where they have gotten to, so you’ll have to rely on the Twin review to this one to provide you with the details on how Calipso comes to you from Filofax.

Typical right - one sister is responsible and the other…well, not so much ; )

For this review’s purposes, the Filofax website lists the inserts that come with the Calipso as follows:

  • Transparent flyleaf
  • 2 color front sheet to co-ordinate with organizer range
  • Week on 2 pages diary, 5 language
  • 1-6 colored index
  • To do
  • White ruled notepaper
  • White quadrille notepaper
  • White plain notepaper
  • Contacts
  • Blue ruled notepaper
  • Green ruled notepaper
  • Pink ruled notepaper
  • Frosted ruler/page marker

Now let’s get to the fun part…the Calipso in use!

The inside front of the Calipso features four vertical card slots with one full-depth pocket at the bottom, as well as a vertical slash pocket behind the card pockets. A fully elastic pen loop also graces the front cover. Materials used on the inside of Calipso are a combination of the external leather and color matched, lightly corded polyester lining.


As you can see, the pen loop can easily handle my fat Coleto Lumio multi pen. I’m very pleased to see a movement toward either partially or fully elasticized pen loops making their way into the leather binders, since so many of us prefer to use multi pens, fountain pens or the like in our planners. Nicely done Filofax!

While the elastic pen loop has quickly become a favorite feature of mine, even more of a deal-breaker (for me) is the fact that the Calipso Compact will lay flat.


Initially, straight out of the box, it did not. It was pretty close to flat but not all the way there.  However, within a couple days of normal use, it relaxed and now lays flat nicely (no “training” required).


The leather for the body of the planner is described on the Filofax website as “soft full grain leather with a small grain texture”. And it is very soft indeed! The leather is padded a bit (unlike the thick, one-piece leather body of the Original) and very cushy to the touch, but without feeling delicate; I have no qualms about tossing Calipso into my bag with my keys and other items.

The color saturation is AH. MAY. ZING! The Deep Pink of the model I was given to review is a nice balance between a bright, blue-based pink and fuchsia. Eye-catching without being blinding or out of place in a professional environment.

The main design element of Calipso is the concealed popper. A lovely, croco-embossed leather, the closure is much firmer than the body leather, and its thickness and width suggest it will provide security for all your valuable planning pages within.


To compliment the juicy, summery color of the Deep Pink Calipso, I trimmed down some Franklin Covey Her Point of View monthly tabs for use with my Filofax Week on Two Pages inserts. You know I love me some tabbed months!! Not only are they necessary to my planning system, in this case I also thought they looked bright and cheery with the binder.


The 2/3” rings provide ample room for a full set of the aforementioned monthly tabs interspersed with a full year of Week on Two Pages…with room to spare for some notepaper, if so desired. Even with a Filofax Plastic Envelope as the final entry in the rings (to hold my stickers), the pages turn smoothly.


As you can see, Calipso accommodates everything I need quite nicely. The slight bulge you see is from use of the vertical card slots inside the front. The vertical layout of the slots means that most of the bulk is at the top. This is not a big deal for my use, but those who prefer a sleeker Compact planner may want to invest in a pack of Filofax Business/Visiting Card Holder inserts and keep what goes into the card slots to a minimum. As you can see, I have the slots pretty full.


Even with the Coleto Lumio in the pen loop, the Calipso snaps shut securely.


The interior back of Calipso features a vertical zipped pocket. Unlike most Filofax with zipped pockets in the back cover, this one faces inward.


As such, it is a bit difficult to get in and out of quickly or on the go, and I have yet to find any real use for the zipped pocket after a few weeks of use because of that fact. I do have some smaller paper items tucked inside that I won’t need access to very often, but other than that I would have preferred to see the zip pocket facing outward, as we are accustomed to in the Filofax line, or an additional vertical slip pocket to mirror the front.

The attachment point of the croco closure to the back of the binder is well done and unobtrusive, despite it being quite a heft of leather.



For those of you who enjoy the slim profile of the Filofax Compact, but crave some color and excitement in your daily planning, I highly recommend Calipso. Between the luxurious leather body, the tropical inspired snap closure and the bevy of fun, vivacious colors to choose from, there is a lot to love about this beautiful binder.

Calipso is available in Bright Blue, Deep Pink, Teal, Burnt Orange and Solar Yellow for $79 on the FilofaxUSA website.

Thank you to Zoe and Susan for the reviews of their 'Twins' I'm sure they will up date us with news as the 'Twins' grow up.

4 comments:

  1. Those FC HPOV inserts look like they would go nicely with any of the Calipso binders. Hmm...

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  2. they would! and trimming down/re-punching just a pack of monthlies really wasn't that horrible....just sayin' ;)

    thank you steve for hosting our twin reviews...this was a lot of fun!

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  3. Another thorough review, I'm really trying to justify getting one of these now. I like the teal and orange colours, if they were available in A5 I wouldn't even have to think about it. As it is ... just maybe. ;)

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  4. Love the pink (and i usually can't stand anything pink)! Great review. Now Filofax only needs to make a personal version with bigger rings ;)

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