It seems the best desk accessories on the market right now are part of a system of accessories. Each accessory is designed to fit alongside a variety of other parts, providing a sum total that should improve your desk setup, improve your focus, improve your delight, or whatever.

These systems are expensive. The three most widely loved systems will run you upwards of $1,000 or more to build out your entire desk with like-designed accessories that work together.

This has pros and cons, like anything else. The accessories looking and feeling the same will appease those looking for pure consistency across their desk (raises hand). When they’re designed to work together, they work together, potentially unlocking more space or more features than if they were used on their own.

But there are cons. If you can’t afford the whole set, the individual accessories may be missing the complementary features from the missing counterparts. There may also be compromises built into individual accessories for the sake of working with other parts.

This is where I stand on the Grovemade Laptop Riser. Grovemade’s Laptop Riser is designed to work specifically with the Grovemade Desk Shelf — the stand’s unique U-shaped design slides smoothly underneath the Desk Shelf, bringing your laptop’s stand closer to your external display. The front walnut accent beautifully moulds into any wood-focused desk design.

But on its own, the Grovemade Laptop Riser lacks a variety of features you’ll find in other laptop stands from Twelve South or Rain Design. You can’t fold the stand. You can’t really take it anywhere. Not only that, but you can’t truly use the stand among other desk setup systems. You can, but I doubt you’ll want.

The Grovemade Laptop Riser is truly designed as a Desk Shelf companion. You can use it on its own, don’t get me wrong. But in and among any other combination of desk accessories, you’re likely going to want a different laptop stand.

Materials

It’s always about materials with Grovemade products. Grovemade uses a combination of wood, metal, felt, and cork unlike any other accessory company right now. Each product is sturdy as a rock and fashionable enough to show off.

The Laptop Riser is no different. The hallmark accent here is the solid block of walnut affixed to the front of the stand. It’s a slightly warmer walnut stain — my desk is a milk chocolate walnut stain, and the walnut block on the Laptop Riser is ever-so-slightly more orange than the desk walnut. It looks great, especially in warmer settings.

The top is lined with a warm felt. The felt lines the entire bottom-side, meaning your laptop will be sitting on the felt itself. If you’re worried about cooling, this is a warmer way to rest your laptop than other laptop stands, which either leave air underneath the display or use a different material selection.

The dark felt is the only colour option — something to keep in mind if you’re as picky as me for office themes.

Grovemade doesn’t use any cork in the Laptop Riser. Cork is one of Grovemade’s answers to the sustainability question, and I believe cork is one of Grovemade’s material weaknesses. Cork works great underneath a desk mat which needs friction, some sturdiness, and some softness. But it doesn’t work as well in the Desk Shelf, where you have weight on the shelf for long periods of time across a variety of humid and non-humid environments. Thankfully, Grovemade opted not to include any particular cork element in the Laptop Riser.

The Laptop Riser holds your MacBook Pro at a surprisingly steep angle when open. There are a few things to note here:

• The steeper the angle, the less desk footprint the stand takes up.
• The steeper the angle, the less area underneath the stand for storing items.

The stand is formed from a solid piece of metal. This isn’t the heaviest metal laptop stand out there — the Ugmonk Gather laptop stand seems heavier to me — but the Grovemade option is hefty in its own right. The metal pings when you set it down on the desk, and you won’t be budging it easily. Overall, the metal U-shaped backbone of the stand is sturdy and well-built.

Again, you’ll never be wanting when it comes to Grovemade’s material choices. These material choices drive the high Grovemade price but also drive the high Grovemade quality.

Use with the Grovemade Desk Shelf

This is the kicker with this laptop stand. Grovemade’s Laptop Riser is specifically designed for the Grovemade Desk Shelf. The U-shaped design slides nicely underneath the shelf, enabling you to mount your laptop up and off to the side in clamshell mode or to slide it nice and close to your external display with the laptop lid open. The Desk Shelf even has an off-centre middle tray divider, showcasing where Grovemade expects you to rest your external display and where the Laptop Stand is going to sit. It’s the sort of thing that seems obvious when you use these kinds of accessories together.

But! Again! There are tradeoffs to these accessory design choices.

• Sliding the Laptop Riser underneath the Desk Shelf renders the Desk Shelf space behind the Laptop Riser on the Shelf useless. You probably won’t be storing anything back there, assuming you run your wires or close your laptop for clamshell mode from time to time. You also can’t access anything in Grovemade’s Desk Tray if you have one stored in the Desk Shelf.
• Sliding the Laptop Riser underneath cuts into your mouse space if you’re right-handed. (Adding to my conclusion that the rationally superior spot to use a laptop stand is to the left of your external display, even if the Grovemade Desk Shelf isn’t designed for left-side use.)

• Sliding the Laptop Riser to the right of the Desk Shelf’s right leg cuts down on the space you can use underneath the Desk Shelf. If you see the coolest setups on Reddit, you’ll see loads of folks storing a hard drive underneath a desk shelf in this manner. The Laptop Stand somewhat hinders your ability to store anything underneath the Desk Shelf.

So while the Laptop Stand the Desk Shelf look and function wonderfully together, there are enough cons here to give some folks pause if they’re looking for an ultra-functional desk system.

Use on Its Own

Simple: The Grovemade Laptop Riser is the single most beautiful laptop stand on the market. The Ugmonk Gather stand might give it a run for its money, but I’ll stand by the comment for now.

Cables from a wired keyboard will have to snake around the front of the laptop stand rather than run underneath like many other laptop stands, but this shouldn’t be too much of a bother. That walnut block on the uniquely U-shaped Laptop Stand will catch any onlooker’s attention.

You might find the Riser works with other desk accessory systems, but I doubt it — I try hard to stay on top of the best systems out there, and they all have their own unique laptop stand option.

Wrap Up

The high-quality materials, U-shaped design, and Made-in-America Grovemade product makes for an expensive price tag. The Grovemade Laptop Riser is $190 USD, especially steep when compared to foldable and portable options from Twelve South. The Riser is designed to be part of a larger, highly stylish, highly sustainable system, and it works best when used with other Grovemade products.

Don’t rest on the Laptop Riser — this is a great laptop stand in its own right.

But don’t shrug off the idea that the Riser is just part of a larger system — the moment you unbox and use the Laptop Riser, you’re going to want to add more Grovemade desk shelf system products to your desk. And that’ll cost you, like any good desk accessory system.

I think I was wrong in my last review of an Infinity Loops Apple Watch band. I clearly stated there was no real Watch band that could do it all — everyday wear, fitness, water, formal wear, and more. If one exists, I thought it was a unicorn.

Some of my assumptions have been tested since. After testing out an Infinity Loops Titanium Link Bracelet for a few months, I think I found the closest thing to a true “everything, everywhere” Apple Watch band.

I’ve used the Titanium Link Bracelet from Infinity Loops in every scenario mentioned above and I’ve come away impressed.

The Link Bracelet can certainly be worn in a more formal setting (though I think wisdom would dictate a real mechanical watch in the most formal settings), but can also be worn in the hot tub, on the bike, on the golf course, or with shorts, a t-shirt, and boat shoes. I’m genuinely impressed with the versatility of this band.

The Band’s quality is equally impressive, though I don’t have any other direct comparisons. The band feels great, is reasonably easy to resize, and is durable enough to take a beating.

All in all, the Titanium Link Bracelet from Infinity Loops hits far above its weight, especially given the price tag.

Let’s dive in a little further.

Quality and Materials

I’ve been quite happy with the way Link Bracelet complements the Apple Watch Ultra. The titanium band connectors ensure material continuity from the face of the Watch through to the clasp, which also gives the Watch that more formal appeal.

The continuity appears to be mostly there in actual quality as well. To the touch, the Link Bracelet finish feels a lot like the Ultra Watch itself. Both feel durable with a slight grainy friction when you run your finger along the metal.

I’d say the Link Bracelet is a slightly cooler silver colour than the Watch Ultra — there’s just a tinge of brown to the Watch Ultra Titanium, though I don’t think it’s noticeable to the point someone would comment on it.

The Link Bracelet is made of individual link pieces that attach to one another. The clasp brings everything together at the bottom and is held together with the tiniest metal screws. It all looks and feels great.

There has to be some flexibility in the band to be comfortable to wear, though. Each link has enough tolerance to ensure the band can bend and breathe. The links don’t extend or compress north-south very well (eliminating the band’s ability to expand or contract based on the size of your wrist on a hot or cold day), but they do snake east-west well enough.

The one area of concern for me is the addition or removal of the band to the Watch Ultra itself. To put the band in place, you first need to disconnect one of the links from its partner and then slide the band connector into the Watch. Then you have to reconnect the links together to form the completed band. I didn’t do this the first time, instead trying to blunt force the band into the Watch Ultra by bending it beyond the tolerances intended. The result is a clasp that is ever so slightly off-kilter, and one which I need to meaningfully close rather than one that closes smoothly like most do out of the factory.

Overall, the fit and finish of the Titanium Link Bracelet is worthy of being put into the Watch Ultra. The band won’t bend or break on you, though you have to ensure you learn the proper technique for adding or removing it from your Watch Ultra.

Use Cases

The ability to use the Titanium Link Bracelet in nearly every facet of life is perhaps the band’s biggest selling point. The Link Bracelet can be used in both everyday and formal settings, in the cold and in the heat, in the water or in the sun, on the bike or in the gym, and more. This is perhaps the band I’ve switched out the least over the last few months.

But there’s also something about being a jack-of-all-trades. We know this. This band lives up to the moniker here — if you’re looking for a specific fitness band, the Link Bracelet is certainly not going to be your first choice. If you’re going deep sea diving, you’re not going to pick the Link Bracelet over the included Ocean band.

The benefit of the Link Bracelet then becomes its usability in a variety of circumstances when you don’t have any other band with you or the time to switch it out. This is the only band I have that I’ve used when riding the Peloton and when jumping in the hot tub an hour later. I misplaced my Ocean band for the day and the Link Bracelet nicely fit both use cases in a pinch. Now that I’ve found the Ocean band though, I most certainly switch out the bands when I jump on the bike or jump in the hot tub.

And lastly, while I do think you can wear the Link Bracelet in a more formal setting — I don’t think anyone should be concerned about this band fitting in all but the most formal wedding or ball-type settings. I still think there’s a line to be drawn in the sand where you should wear a real watch in formal settings. If it’s your wedding day, a real mechanical watch is still the way to go. The Link Bracelet doesn’t suddenly change the watch game for formal settings.

If you have no other watch choice though, the Titanium Link Bracelet and a Watch Ultra are going to look great in more formal settings.

Wrap Up

I’ve always had two or three concerns about wearing metallic watches bands:

• The fear of the links in the band grabbing and tearing my arm hair out at the worst possible times. The metal pieces coming together are notorious for the occasional pinch and can also cause damage if knocked against other things.
• The fear of a watch band that doesn’t expand or contract in the hot or cold — or worse, is extra-cold in the coldest settings.
• The fear of how frankly “over-dressed” nearly all metallic watches bands look, no matter the type of watch.

By and large, most of my fears have not been realized. The metal links do grab some arm hair on occasion, but this is far from the norm. The ability to remove links and customize to your wrist size works well — and is actually the mechanism in which you have to remove the band itself. And the band works well in so many different circumstances.

Overall, the Infinity Loops Titanium Watch Band is a fantastic second Watch band to buy. It’s the band that can do everything pretty well. If you’re in need of a specialized band, then consider a specialized band. It’s that easy.

Infinity Loops sent me this Apple Watch band free of charge for purposes of review. I’ve worked as hard as I can to ensure I provide an honest review.

I don’t think you can “review” a mechanical keyboard, per se. They’re too much a sum of their parts. They’re too customizable. There’s so much you can do to make a board great. Or terrible. A great board build could be ruined by bad switches or poor keycaps. A poor build could be covered up by great keycaps or a few neat Bluetooth features.

Said another way, the Mode Envoy in my hands may be reviewed differently by other folks.

I purchased a limited run, prebuilt Mode Envoy a couple months ago. The prebuilt Envoys come with Mode Anthracite Keycaps, Anthracite Silent Tactile Switches, the now-famous Lattice Block Mount system, and more. Normally the Envoy is a custom keyboard that needs to be built by the buyer. This limited run screamed my name, if only because of a poor confidence level when it comes to building.

So despite being a sum of its underlying parts, the Mode Envoy indeed rises to a new level of fit and finish in my collection. The Envoy has a feel that has declared my keyboarding days in two different eras: the pre-Envoy era and the post-Envoy era.

The Chassis

The white e-coated aluminum chassis is sturdy. So sturdy. Like, “I thought plastic was just fine until I tried a Mode Envoy” sturdy. The chassis is likely the part that sets the Envoy apart from other semi-expensive prebuilt keyboards out there. This chassis feels formidable.

The chassis has two specific channels for added customization: the weight channel in the bottom of the chassis, which you have to remove the entire PCB to change out; and the accent channel on the top of the chassis, which you’d customize to your own accent choice. I removed the PCB and removed the pre-built aluminum accent the Envoy came with and added the walnut accent. The walnut accent fits all my other desk accessories nicely.

This prebuilt model has a simple grey anodized aluminum weight, which isn’t on the heaviest end of the spectrum by any means. If you want this keyboard to feel even more sturdy, you can upgrade to a copper weight. If you added a copper accent, you’d add additional weight to the board as well.

I focus specifically here on the heft of the keyboard because it is the fundamental feature to this keyboard. This sturdiness makes the keyboard feel so true when typing. The Envoy isn’t going to slip or slide around the desk. I can’t budge it.

I felt the Nuphy Halo96 was a hefty keyboard. But the fact this 65% Envoy has more weight and heft than the 96% Halo96 quickly drives home the difference between consumer-friendly prebuilts and an introduction to the mid-tier keyboard market.

The Switches

The prebuilt Envoy comes installed with Mode’s own Anthracite Silent Tactile switches. They are wonderfully quiet and ensure you can use this keyboard in any environment — office settings to sleeping babies.

These switches have a bottom out force of 62g, which is slightly less than the popular Boba U4T Silent Tactiles. The Anthracites are slightly mushier than the Bobas as well. You can really feel the Boba switch push back on your fingertip on its way back after being pressed and you will never forget the huge tactile bump on the way down on a Boba keypress. The same isn’t so for these Anthracites — there is a slight bump down and even more timid return on the way back up. The Anthracites are quieter, though.

Give me a choice and I am picking the Boba switches. But the Anthracites are growing on me.

The Keycaps

Mode’s Anthracite keycaps are far more than just good looks. They provide a retro style that would fit any monotone or greyscale workspace. But more importantly, Mode has opted for a few specific features which set these keycaps apart from anything you’re picking up right now from Keychron or Nuphy:

• PBT/ABS blend materials — These keycaps are optimized around scratch and shine resistance, ensuring your fingerprint oils don’t take their toll on your keyboard. The keycaps have a more tactile feel to them, especially if I compare to my Nuphy Halo96 stock keycaps. I love the feel of the Tai Hao keycaps on ZSA’s keyboard offerings, but they pick up finger grime instantly. Mode seems to have solved this problem.
• Huge double shot legends — Mode’s keycap legends are famously large. I love these large legends. The legends are standard font and easy to read. They’re massive and hard to miss. And the modifier keys come with the Apple-specific symbols baked right in. I love these keycaps.
• You receive a true entire set — In case you ever want to use these keycaps on a differently-sized or shaped keyboard, Mode sends the entire keycap set with the prebuilt Envoy. So if you want to use the extra keys on a different keyboard or opt for a different keyboard altogether, these keycaps will be available no matter your keyboard selection.

Visually speaking, these Anthracite keycaps are the star of the show. They really bring the Envoy’s design to the forefront. And while the design is likely why you come to the show, it’s the feel of the keycaps which will have you returning to Mode for your next set.

Wrap Up

All in, the prebuilt Mode Envoy was $385 USD — a staggering number once you convert to Canadian dollars and add customs, duties, taxes, and shipping. I wanted this keyboard. So I paid for it. You do you.

The reason I write about the keyboard is because I think I now understand why these keyboards can get so expensive. This sum of parts is far, far better than any previous sum of mechanical keyboard parts I’ve tried. The chassis is sturdier and truer. The switches are great for any environment. The keycaps are probably the nicest keycaps on the market right now. Subjective, I know.

This sum of parts feels as though my mechanical keyboard hobby has been finalized. The only keyboard I want now is the Sonnet.

It’s likely too late to talk about Standby Mode now that iOS 17 has been out for a few months. But the beauty of writing a thousand words or less means I can throw out a quip and not regret it.

I hadn’t had a chance to play with Standby Mode until the last few weeks. I attempted using it on my nightstand at night, but any movement would fire up the red-on-black-themed display. That theme is great for dark environments, but I still prefer pitch black at night. The result was Standby Mode being put on standby until I had a proper desk stand for use during the day.

Last week, that stand came and I finally had a chance to put Standby Mode to proper use.

Side note: The Ugmonk Gather Desk Organizer is fantastic. The organizer comes with a magnetic baseplate, note tray, pen tray, and MagSafe iPhone stand, perfect for Standby Mode throughout the day. I’ll talk more about the desk organizer in the future.

You can create widget stacks in Standby Mode, just like the iOS and iPadOS Home Screen, and so I’ve created two different widget stacks:

1. The Clock widget stacked on top of a Spark mail widget noting the number of new emails in my inbox. I’ve also toyed with adding a Fantastical schedule widget to this stack, though this hasn’t stuck for me.
2. A few different Carrot Weather widgets for tracking hourly and weekly forecasts and the local radar.

I’m impressed with a couple things in Standby Mode.

Perhaps Standby Mode’s best feature is how well it eliminates distraction. If you have the iPhone sitting on a charger vertically, by default you’ll see your Lock Screen complete with your notifications and Lock Screen widgets. Anytime a new notification comes in, the screen lights up to let you know something arrived. In Standby Mode, notifications show up on-screen, but disappear after a few moments and return to your custom widget stacks. Nothing stays on-screen notifying you missed something.

In a way, Standby Mode is like a “Focus Mode 0.5” — it’s like a focus mode, but with full notification settings that appear when they come in then stay hidden until you physically go looking for them.

I also appreciate the onboard machine learning to know when to switch between widgets in custom widget stacks. Last week, I noticed it started to snow in the window behind me, and almost immediately Standby Mode flipped the weather widget stack to Carrot Weather’s radar widget showing the direction of the coming snowstorm. This was the best example I’ve seen yet of smart rotations in widget stacks.

Standby Mode isn’t perfect, though. My one main hiccup is the “Now Playing” screen. We have a HomePod mini in the office which plays throughout the day. The rest of our staff don’t tend to turn on the HomePod themselves, so I’ll often fire up the music from my desk. I really enjoying controlling playback from my iPhone in Standby Mode. But there are numerous times where the Now Playing button simply doesn’t appear, or the iPhone thinks the music is paused while it’s still playing. This probably isn’t a Standby Mode hiccup, but I notice it when in Standby Mode for sure.

Standby Mode is awesome and I love having it available as a Focus Mode 0.5 or Focus Mode mini, popping up notifications or notifying me of an incoming phone call, only to put those notifications hidden away until I actually grab my phone and go looking. I’ve noticed a near immediate impact to my productivity since using Standby Mode each day and noticed at least an extra one or two flow states each working day.

I used to write about each special Field Notes release, Field Notes covers, and special pens. It was a thing. It still is a thing. I still have a Pilot Vanishing Point, a Lamy 2000, and a Kaweco Brass Sport, all of which I received for purposes of review.

To an extent, I miss those days. They seemed simpler. It was easy to write about how a pen felt or the toothiness of a new paper. My first crack at Tomoe River paper inside a Hobonichi remains my favourite analog memory.

As time progressed, digital tools put pressure on analog tools. Writing out a to-do list — which, I’m well aware, works great for many people — was simply not as efficient as capturing tasks inside an app. Project management was (is?) better in a digital app. For me, the only true analog need has been the capture of handwritten notes. The iPad can do it, yes, but the iPad feels kneecapped in so many ways.

It’s also been a long time since an analog tool really caught my attention. Between a bored skull and the avoidance of yet another notebook crowding my drawer, analog tools have largely been sunsetted for me.

Until Plotter.

All you have to do is peruse the Plotter USA webpage for 10 minutes to experience the feeling. You’ll want a Plotter in no time.

Fortunately, the cost will likely get in the way for many. Leather cover, add. Paper, add. Project manager, add. Archive binders, add.

Plotter gets expensive, fast.

Despite the cost, Plotter is my favourite notebook in years. It brings me back to that fresh, brave Author Josh who had no shame in writing about pens and paper.

Giggle all you want. You know you want a Plotter after viewing the website. And I bet you’ll want to use a Plotter after only a couple minutes of setting one up.

The Leather Cover

There are all sorts of leather in the world. There’s faux, nubuck, nappa, calfskin, sheepskin, goatskin, kangaroo, cowhide, shell cordovan, crocodile. There’s more yet. And though I haven’t tried them all, a glimpse at my home office shelving provides a number of good examples.

I have a few vegetable-tanned leather wallets from Bellroy which provide a baseline of “good quality”. These wallets have aged reasonably well, though I don’t expect they’re going to last a lifetime. They feel great in the hand, largely haven’t ripped (one has, but I think this is a glue issue and not a leather issue), and they also look great. They smell odour-free after a few years of use.

I have more than a couple goatskin Bibles. Goatskin leather is extra supple and flexible — you can curl the front cover of the Bible around in your hand for better one-handed reading without any permanent curvature to the cover. These Bibles are exquisitely made and I expect will last a lifetime. Unless I spill wine over one of them again.

I also have a Midori Traveler’s Notebook. The Traveler’s Notebook held the title of “best” leather of any analog tool in my collection. Handmade in Thailand, the leather smells wonderful for a long time. It’s thick, durable, and sturdy, willingly taking bumps and bruises from all corners of your life. Those bumps and bruises generally stay for the lifetime of the leather as well. Traveler’s Notebook is a true cream of the crop.

I would rank Plotter leather up near Traveler’s Notebook leather. (Though, the products are made by the same company, so they may well be the same leather.) It’s a tad thinner, but just barely. There’s a strong out-of-the-box smell which hasn’t gone away. Plotter leather is a tad more supple and doesn’t feel as substantial as Traveler’s Notebook leather, but it’s more substantial than any other leather in my arsenal. There’s some shine here as well, especially on the black variety.

The Plotter’s inside cover is softer, with more toothiness. This is nicely utilitarian — if you are writing on paper write up against this inside cover, it almost acts as a blotter and your paper doesn’t slide around while writing.

On the inside back cover there’s an inscription detailing some of the Plotter mission and vision. This is all done quite tastefully.

To be clear, I’m comparing Plotter leather to the very best Traveler’s Notebook leather. To be a second-best to Traveler’s Notebook is no small feat. Plotter feels and looks fantastic and I expect this notebook cover to be with me for decades to come.

The Paper

Plotter is part of the larger Designphil company, which owns well-known brands like Midori, Traveler’s Company, and Knox. In fact, Plotter has been around for more than a few years already, only debuting in North America in the last two or three years. If it feels and looks like Plotter is familiar right out of the box, that’s because it likely is. Inspiration appears to be floating over from Midori and Traveler’s Company products.

Case in point: Plotter’s paper. Inside Plotter refills are Designphil’s own pocketbook paper, which is the same paper found in Midori notebooks. If you’ve written in a Midori notebook, you’ll know what it’s like to write on Plotter paper.

This is a good thing — Plotter’s pocketbook paper is excellent for fountain pen writing, offering a smooth writing experience without major show-through or bleeding. Inks shine nicely on the paper, with very little feathering. The creamy colour is also easy on the eyes when reading and feels traditional in the best sense.

The same can’t be said for rollerball pen writing, however. I have a Lamy Lx Rollerball, which shows through Designphil’s paper far faster than I care to admit. In some spots, it has almost bled through to the other side. It’s a weird phenomenon, one which sub-consciously limits my writing in this notebook to fountain pens only. I’ve recently taken to writing with the Lx Rollerball once more, but only because I’m getting to the end of the ink refill and it’s writing drier than when I first pulled the pen out of the box.

I haven’t tested pencils. I’m not a pencil guy. Though it’s notable that a great deal of Plotter’s marketing shows off pencil usage in the notebook. I’d bet it’s excellent.

The paper itself is very thin and feels delicate. If you catch the paper inside one of the rings when rearranging your refills, you’ll quickly note how easily the paper folds and rips. The thinness of the paper ensures you can fit a few more items inside your Plotter, though it surprised me when I first unboxed the refill paper — I find the paper thickness to be on the delicate side. It’s not too thin, but we’re right on the edge here.

All in all, the paper garners a fair “pretty good” assessment from me, especially if I stick to fountain pen considerations only. This is no Tomoe River paper. If you stick to fountain pens, regular ballpoint pens, and pencils, this paper will feel excellent for you.

The Inserts

Like every good notebook these days, there’s an entire system to build out your Plotter. Plotter provides a variety of excellent refills specially designed for each notebook size and, due to the generic 6-ring system, you could also create some of your own refills if you choose. If you want to get adventurous, you could peruse the Knox website in search of more Plotter-like refills — Knox is more specifically Japanese, but some Knox inserts appear to work inside a Plotter quite well.

Plotter currently offers the following refills to build out your notebook:

• Memo refills, including lined, grid (2mm), dot grid (5mm), and blank paper
• To do list refills
• Drawing paper refills, which are perforated and can be ripped out of the notebook
• Diary refills, including monthly and weekly refills
• Project manager refills, which can be used to separate out pages applicable to a specific project or subject and which you want to keep together
• Lifter refills for providing harder surfaces for writing or to split apart sections in your notebook
• Bookmark refills for quickly jumping to different sections in your notebook
• Fastener cases for storing odds and ends in your notebook

The smallest Plotter sizes have a few additional inserts, including a leather card case for carrying credit cards and business cards.

The generic 6-ring system opens more doors for building out your Plotter in unique ways. You can use small, 3-hole punched memo pages in a larger Bible or A5-sized Plotter, for instance. The ability to mix and match paper sizes to notebook sizes makes for a world of organizational opportunities.

A few additional anecdotes about inserts:

• Plotter seems to sell out of annually-released monthly and weekly diary refills very quickly. I picked up a 2024 monthly refill back in late August and they were sold out by early September. This isn’t conducive for those wanting to use this as a calendar.
• The to-do list refill has a unique layout for tracking the percent completion of a task. You can draw a line inside the right column to denote your percent complete and then check off the item in the far-right column when done. This is a great layout if you’re into tracking your to do list in an analog format.
• Lined memo refills come with some very handy niceties, including small lines on the bottom, middle, and top lines for using a ruler and creating your own columns on the page. There’s also a per-line numbering system on each page if you want to track exactly where you wrote something (think something like “Page #-Line #” as part of an index). The top right corner also has a slash for marking the date or page number.
• Monthly refills come with an annual calendar and monthly spreads printed on a 2mm grid. There are some extra pages in the back of the refill for personal information and a few extra 2mm grid sheets for note-taking.

The most important consideration when purchasing Plotter refills is the inherent limitations of the small 6-ring binder system. Plotter notebooks are very specifically not designed to carry lots of refill paper. If I could double-bold those comments, I would. You will not be able to fit a monthly calendar, a weekly calendar, ample notes, and a fastener case like you do inside a Traveler’s Notebook. Plotter is designed to keep your current and latest projects only, with older notes destined for archival in one of Plotter’s own larger archiving binders.

This is especially notable if you want to build out your Plotter with the leather bookmarks or extra lifters between sections of your notebook. I use lifters to separate sections and bookmarks to jump to the next page in each section. Four bookmarks and four lifters quickly diminishes the amount of paper notes that can be kept in each section. Overloading the notebook results in pages not sitting flat when writing.

I’m not sure yet where I stand on the size limitations here. In one sense, I like that I can archive the old notes faster than I would with other notebook systems. In another, this means I don’t necessarily have my older notes all the time for referencing and I can’t keep everything I want inside the Plotter either. I get the premise of keeping only current work inside Plotter, but some folks will find themselves looking elsewhere because of this.

This is also the part which makes Plotter so expensive. A Plotter notebook cover is far from cheap, but adding each refill and accessory to your order will skyrocket the price of this notebook system in an instant. You could easily spend $350 USD on a Plotter notebook system by the time all is said and done.

Having a 6-ring binder system is very handy and the most customizable notebook option on the planet. The ability to add and remove items is perfect for tinkerers or for those who are more into ephemeral note-taking rather than permanence. The limitations of the system do cause some strife though, as does the price of the system at large. There should be numerous considerations to what you want your Plotter to be before diving in head first.

The Use

Here is my current Plotter setup:

• Leather ring supporter for limiting the rings from wearing away the inside front and back leather cover.
• Four lifters for:
    – Front cover– Back cover (this ensures you’re met with a black lifter page when you first open the cover; I think this looks best)– Separating my to do list section from my notes section– Separating my notes section from my calendar section
• To do list refill pages for tracking lists of items
• Lined refill pages for work and personal notes, which are separated by two different leather bookmarks
• Monthly calendar refill pages in the back for tracking specific activities on dates in the past; mainly this has become a mileage log.

Leather bookmarks are positioned at my most recent note pages for quickly jumping to where I need to be. I use three leather bookmarks in total — one for my most recent work note, another for my most recent personal note, and another for my most recent to do list page. Leather bookmarks take up valuable thickness space inside the Plotter, so I’ve found less bookmarks is better.

The binder system itself is made of a metal spine that runs down the spine of the Plotter leather cover. The spine clearly shouldn’t be bent or applied pressure to. This of course limits your ability to throw a small Plotter in your back pocket or any place where you may apply awkward pressure to the binder system. I would say this limits some of the Plotter’s ability to be an everyday-carry item, though folks are likely to quickly throw this into a messenger bag or briefcase on a whim.

I really appreciate a few things about my Plotter notebook:

• The ability to add and remove refill pages with ease makes for my favourite notebook experience. There’s nothing locking you into any particular section of Plotter. You can take notes for a while if you want, then switch over to a monthly calendar setup if you’d prefer, or move all of these things around in a different order. I love the lack of permanence in Plotter.
• The requirement to keep less paper inside Plotter makes for a thinner notebook with less cruft to carry around. I appreciate this and I haven’t yet not found a note I needed in a flash. I have an archival binder in my office which stores notebook pages (the archival binder is not worth the money, I’d add; this is one of the most disappointing accessories I’ve ever purchased) and which is easy enough to flip through to find past notes.
• I really like the ability to add small memo pages to the top or bottom three holes. They can act like reminders or even section dividers. The ability to add these sorts of things makes for a new level of customization that I appreciate more and more.
• Perhaps my favourite aspect of Plotter is the true lay flat nature of the notebook. Each page lays perfectly flat (assuming you haven’t overloaded your Plotter), making for the best writing and referencing experience of any notebook I’ve tried. You don’t need any page holders like you do for a Traveler’s Notebook. You don’t need any elastics for holding things in place. This is excellent.
• I love how easy it is to remove the pages and run them through a scanner for digital storage. This is probably one of the best parts of a ring binder system.

And, of course, a few things I’m not so happy with:

• Ring binder systems are notorious for the rings getting in the way when writing across the notebook (right-handers when writing on the left side page and left-handers when righting on the right side page). It’s a pain in the butt to write any words up tight to the rings. I often resort to removing the page from the binder entirely and just writing on the page on the right side of the notebook instead.
• If the Plotter is too full, the pages catch in the rings, bending the page and not allowing the notebook to lay flat. This drives me nuts, especially the bending part.
• Plotter is very expensive. The notebook itself. The refills. The shipping. Everything about this system is expensive. This isn’t a complaint really, it just limits the number of folks who will take the chance on an otherwise great notebook system.

Wrap Up

I’ve now had my Plotter notebook for the better part of a year. It’s the longest serving notebook I’ve had in years. I like the smaller Bible size for discreetly taking notes during meetings. I like the paper. I love the ability to reorganize and scan pages by removing things from the binder system.

There’s something particularly inspiring and fun about using such a beautiful analog product. I really, really love the way the Plotter notebook looks. It looks amazing in photographs. It looks awesome when sitting on a conference room table during a meeting. It looks great spread out on my desk for school or simple personal notes. Add in the special leather bookmarks and this may well be the best looking notebook available today.

That extra dash of pizzazz always provides some inspiration for getting back into the Plotter and jotting through some thoughts, lists, or something to move your day forward. This is a net win, in all regards.

Plotter is expensive, but it may well be the best notebook system I’ve tried to date. If you’re eyeing one up, take the plunge. Do your due diligence first. Determine what you’re looking for in a notebook. Once you’re finished that due diligence, take the plunge.

In most folks’ ideal fantasy world, it’s likely they can afford to purchase luxury goods. Expensive sport coats, sports cars, exotic travel — somewhere deep inside 99% of people is a dream of living luxuriously for at least a short period of time.

Then there are the luxury good producers, who successfully find ways to charge astronomical prices for their goods. To an extent, those astronomical prices are pushed up thanks to higher quality materials, laborious production processes, and delivery experiences no rival could match.

But there’s always that “name brand” effect we all so curiously ponder. Don’t we all wonder how much a Yeti cooler would cost if it didn’t have the Yeti name plastered on the side?

The Infinity Loops Honeymoon Suite leather Apple Watch band (bit of a rough name, but as you’ll see, the quality speaks for itself) provides a small sneak peek into this dichotomous world of luxury brand and actual cost to produce. This isn’t just a knock-off Hermès Apple Watch band — it truly seems to be an actual Hermès band that, perhaps, didn’t make it through quality control.

The band comes complete with all the markings, debossings, and engravings you’d expect to see on an actual Hermès Watch band. The leather quality is phenomenal. The buckle is smooth and metal. The Watch connectors slide into the Watch with perfect ease.

The only thing seemingly missing: the Hermès price tag.

I asked the owner of Infinity Loops to give me the context for how these Watch bands came to be. His answer was that these bands are not official Hermès bands but are produced at the same factory as actual Hermès bands. Speculation will ensue, of course. Whether the band didn’t meet quality control standards or not is beyond me.

One thing’s for certain though: My wallet is a whole lot thicker as a result.

Throughout the rest of this review, I’m assuming one thing: that this Infinity Loops Leather Apple Watch Band is indeed not a genuine Hermès band, but is also not a knock-off band either. I’m assuming it didn’t meet a quality control standard. The fit and finish of this band is far too good to be considered a knock-off. Or, flip-side, I don’t believe luxury goods can be that much better than this Infinity Loop Watch band.

Update: I wrote the entirety of this review a few weeks before Apple’s Wonderlust keynote on September 12, 2023. Apple discontinued its production of leather cases and Apple Watch bands at the keynote event. This review may well serve folks with a great leather alternative now that Apple is no longer selling any of its own leather products.

The Leather

The first thing I’d point at when determining whether this Watch band is a knock-off is the quality of the leather. It’d be one thing if the leather began to discolour, felt incredibly light, or didn’t patina the way other genuine leathers do. It’s another when the leather performs better than other, actual name brand Watch bands.

Out of the box, this Infinity Loop’s Watch band is immediately reminiscent of Apple’s own Classic Buckle Watch bands they stopped producing a few years ago. You can find the occasional Classic Buckle band on eBay still today, though their prices are very, very high. I had a beautiful brown Classic Buckle band for the Series 4 watch a few years back and this Infinity Loop leather band is reminiscent of that leather.

I’m going off of pure memory here, but if my memory serves correctly:

• The edges of the Infinity Loop band and that Classic Buckle band are burnished identically.
• The backside of the Infinity Loop band (the part that touches your skin) is of the same fit and finish as the Classic Buckle band.
• The Infinity Loop buckle itself has that same sort of shimmer, not to mention the buckle feels much the same as that older Classic Buckle band.

The Infinity Loop leather seems to wear the same as well, with the same sort of genuine leather patina and wear starting to take shape in the most used buckle holes. This is the “Gold” colour way — evidently taken directly from the new Hermès Gold colour which replaced “Fauve” — though it doesn’t stay that original “gold” colour for long. Even after two or three weeks of daily use, the brown has patina’ed nicely into a darker, richer brown.

Lastly, I’d point at the stitching in the Watch band to determine if this band was a knock-off. And again, the stitching on this Infinity Loop band is perfect — there don’t appear to be any odd misses or issues, save perhaps for a very slight difference in stitching angle on the underside of one of the band loops. Perhaps this is the quality control issue I assumed earlier.

All this to say, this Infinity Loop premium leather Watch band is sublime. The leather is buttery smooth and patinas beautifully. The off-white stitching is my favourite watch band look, period, across all smartwatches and mechanical watches. And the burnished edges remind me heavily of those early-Apple Watch days when Apple actually made nice Watch bands.

If quality leather Watch bands are what you’re looking for, the leather here may well be the best of the best.

The Buckle and Connectors

You can quickly tell if you’ve purchased a third-party Watch band and it isn’t using genuine materials: If the Watch band connectors don’t fluidly slide into the Apple Watch itself, you can bet the producer chintsed and went away from genuine options.

This has been perhaps the biggest difference between the SANDMARC leather band I reviewed a few months ago and this new Infinity Loops premium Watch band — the connectors are night and day different. One band, sliding the connector into the Watch band produces a scratchy feeling where I start to worry about the Apple Watch itself. The other band, sliding in feels like someone dabbed some oil in the process. You can instantly feel the Infinity Loop band has genuine Apple Watch connectors.

The connectors are of the shiny variety, clearly meant for stainless steel Apple Watches. There’s zero chance anyone notices this difference with the titanium-bodied Watch Ultra unless they’re looking to be picky.

The buckle is the same story. The buckle moves back and forth freely with no major points of friction with the leather. The buckle is also noticeable in weight — not so noticeable that I would consider it “heavy”, but noticeable in that it isn’t a featherweight that would cause you to question the material selection.

Like the leather, every metallic element of the Infinity Loop Watch band is of the highest quality and finish. If judging on material quality alone, I’m left wondering if this Watch band isn’t too good to be true.

In Use

As time continues to pass and as smartwatches continue to entrench themselves as the norm, so too does that sense of Apple Watch style. Now, I’m no watch connoisseur or a bespoke men’s stylist. I know a few things, like that double-breasted sport jackets are suddenly back in style, or the difference between an Italian-cut and an American-cut jacket, or when to wear navy shoes. I think watch — and Watch — bands certainly fall in this category somewhere.

The Infinity Loop Premium Leather Watch band ups the Apple Watch ante at least three or four notches. The brown leather band should be worn with a brown belt and brown shoes, though you can likely get away with a slightly different off-brown shoe in all likelihood. You can also wear this band casually, with a nice polo shirt, shorts, and loafers. You can likely also wear it with a properly fitting t-shirt, jeans, and casual jacket for drinks.

You probably shouldn’t wear it with a suit to a wedding, and you should never wear it with a black suit, period. You probably also shouldn’t wear this while working out, or when golfing, or when doing anything physical. Not that you can’t in these scenarios, but it’s best to keep the leather looking better for longer by keeping it relatively sweat-free.

Other than these few scenarios though, this Apple Watch band from Infinity Loops can be worn almost anywhere. It’s the most versatile Apple Watch band I own.

I do think the band would go better with the Stainless Steel Series Apple Watch, mind you. It certainly works with the Watch Ultra, but this band is dressy enough that you should be going with a slimmer Watch more of the time. This screams “everyday office attire” more than it does “going for a rugged hike” — the latter of which is more aligned with the Apple Watch Ultra.

On a durability front, I’ve worked with the Infinity Loop Premium Leather Band in a few different scenarios, from office environment to cutting the grass to family travel. I’ve gotten the band wet (but not too wet), though I’ve obviously never jumped in the hot tub with it. Again, it works best in an office environment where it fits in stylishly. It does a great a job breathing when you undergo some physical activity or when your body temperature heats up and your wrist expands slightly. I think if I were travelling, I’d bring this band along as a separate option for nights out and for more stylish events. It’s just a tad too nice to be an all-day, every-single-day, no-matter-the-circumstance sort of Watch band.

Wrap Up

The Honeymoon Suite Premium Leather Watch Band from Infinity Loops feels like a cheat code. This band provides all the niceties of the very best leather band you can find on the internet today for an absolute fraction of the price. Regular Hermès bands retail for $430 CAD. The Infinity Loop, for about $130 CAD ($99 USD). That’s about 1/4 of the price for the whole ball of wax.

Now I can’t tell anyone I purchased an actual Hermès band. Which is perhaps the entire purpose of that extra $300. If I were to say that, I’d actually be cheating.

But given the poor leather band options available for the Apple Watch Series and Ultra Watches, I stand by this Infinity Loops option being a cheat code. You come away with the best leather Watch band on the market for a down-to-earth price and you can wear the band in a vast array of daily life scenarios. It’s win-win-win.

I think the only real consideration now is whether you should load up on as many of these Infinity Loops bands as you can before we can no longer get them or before Apple goes ahead and changes the Watch connector. Based on rumours, the current Watch connector is likely to stay for at least another year, ensuring any Infinity Loop purchase is sure to make you happy for at least a few years to come.

Infinity Loops sent me this Apple Watch band free of charge for purposes of review. I’ve worked as hard as I can to ensure I provide an honest review. In fact, I’m thinking I’ll be ordering a grey and black Infinity Loop band here shortly. I’m attempting to put my money where my mouth is.

My best Mac hot take in 3-2-1: The 16-inch MacBook Pro was totally built for me. However, so was the 14-inch MacBook Pro. And probably the 15-inch MacBook Air. And for sure the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air as well. There’s no doubt I (would) love all the latest machines from Apple.

And so would you! Each machine has been undoubtedly fantastic since the debut of these M-series chips.

Perhaps never in my life have I ever felt so “ho hum” about a Mac change. In 2009, the 15-inch Intel Core 2 Duo Pro was the best Mac for me. Not long after, the 21.5-inch iMac was best for me. Then surely the 11-inch MacBook Air with Thunderbolt Display was the best setup for me. Then the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Then the 27-inch iMac. Then the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

Every Mac change immediately signalled the very best Mac setup for me.

This M2 Pro 16-inch MacBook Pro bucks the trend. It’s not a slam dunk winner for me. It has great trade-offs for what I use a Mac for. But it has some bad trade-offs as well.

My experience doesn’t differ greatly between the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch MacBook Pro. I use them in the same places for the same things. There are new “awesomes” and new “terribles” in the experience and that’s it.

First, screen real estate — This is the single largest difference between the two computers. There are a few ramifications in my life:

• I can better place a full PDF on one half of the screen and a tax return or an Excel worksheet on the other. This largely eliminates the need for an external display for some of my work-from-home work.
• Editing photos on the larger display is a nicer experience. I won’t say “better”. Just nicer.
• I use Arc a lot in split-screen mode when completing year-end engagement work, which is vastly improved on the 16-inch display.

Second, ergonomics — The larger display seems to have changed ergonomics for me. The display sits at a sharper angle to my eye and my shoulders aren’t as shrugged as when working on the smaller 14-inch machine. I can work for longer periods of time on the 16-inch thanks to this improvement in ergonomics.

Third, muscle memory — I’m surprised how often I find myself searching for the Escape key or the right arrow key at the edge of the MacBook Pro body and come away pressing the wrong key, simply because of the extra space between the keyboard and the edge of the 16-inch chassis. I’ll learn to get over this. For now, I find it impressively annoying how often I press the wrong key.

Fourth, battery life — Perhaps the most surprising difference between the two machines to me is the difference in battery life. I work in Parallels all day, ensuring I have battery-sipping macOS paired side-by-side with a battery-gulping Windows VM all day long. Parallels sucks battery life. It gets better with each release, but it sucks battery life. The extra three or four hours of video viewing time the 16-inch provides translates into a noticeable amount of extra Parallels battery life. This has been such a nice surprise.

Fifth, the size itself — I hadn’t realized how often I move my MacBook between workstations until I threw a 16-inch MacBook Pro into the mix. I take the notebook home every evening with me. I move it between my office and the conference room about once a day. I’ve taken it on a family holiday. This MacBook gets moved around a lot more than I originally thought, and I pay the price each time I pickup this 16-inch beast.

Not only is the 16-inch larger both on a footprint basis and on a weight basis, but it’s also thicker than the 14-inch Pro. Why, I’m unsure. But this notebook is bigger in every dimension and you can sure feel it.

Lastly, trackpad size — The 16-inch Pro’s trackpad is ginormous — almost laughably so. It’s about one centimetre shorter than the external Magic Trackpad, which I’ve always found to be unwieldy and too big. It’s easier to rest the meat of your thumb muscle on the trackpad and cause the occasional inadvertent swipe. It also changes muscle memory habits in knowing where you are on the trackpad when clicking and dragging objects around.

I’m largely indifferent to the overall size of the trackpad. It’s just different and is taking some getting used to.

All in all, I’m happy with the M2 Pro 16-inch MacBook Pro so far. It’s ever so slightly faster than my M1 Pro before it. And it introduces a variety of new pros and cons to my everyday work. I’ll need a full year to know whether or not I’d re-buy a 16-inch in the future or go back to the 14-inch. For now, I’m overall happy with the tradeoffs.

There’s been this weird shift of mindset — of modus operandi — after the Leica Q2 arrived. Before, if you asked me to provide my status in the photography world, back-against-the-wall, I would have told you I was an amateur photographer.

By and large, I am just an amateur photographer.

I’ve made a chunk of money over the last decade with cameras. I’ve worked on developing a certain style of product photography that I’ve come to be proud of. But I’m still just an amateur or hobbyist photographer. It hasn’t become my job (though, photography becoming your job is a low barometer for skillset; I know many photographers who do it for fun who are better than full-time wedding photographers) nor have I amassed any sort of following on Instagram or Glass or this personal blog.

The Leica Q2 arrived and everything changed. For whatever reason, I feel as though I graduated to some sort of upper echelon of photography. Now, I feel as though I’ve finally arrived as a photographer.

Cliché, I know. You’re going to judge me. But I’d be able to look you in the eye and be honest about how I feel. It should never be the gear that makes you feel this way. But it does! I don’t know how else to describe it. For the first time in my life, I feel like a photographer — someone who makes art with a tool, captures light in new and creative ways, and shares the world in unique perspectives.

After the Q2, my photography output has reached two new levels:

1. The quality of the image I’m capturing has improved significantly. I’ve learned to shoot at new apertures and at new angles, both of which have resulted in a somewhat-new photographic look with much more understandable light histograms.
2. The confidence level I have when pulling out the Q2 has reached a new height. There’s no control, button, or feature I don’t have an understanding of on this camera. The skillset to use those features is a different story (I’m specifically referring to videography features here), but I understand all the features here.

At the very core of the Leica Q2 aren’t specifications or capabilities. You simply do not buy this camera to be bleeding edge — heck, leading edge — on the photography line.

You buy this camera for the intangibles: the shooting experience, the tactility, and the image quality. It feels nearly incomparable to any other camera on the market. And to think it’s not even the full Leica secret sauce honed into the M-series cameras.

I can do my best to describe the intangibles in a review. Yet putting words to an experience like this will surely be difficult. The Q2 was released in 2019 — this is hardly a new camera with nearly five-year-old technology. How can such an “old” camera bring out something so new in a semi-seasoned photographer? And how can that photographer somehow put that into words?

Build Quality

Undoubtedly, I’ve never held a camera (perhaps other than a Leica M10-R) that has this build quality.

The Q2 camera is heavy. Not so heavy that the camera would be unwieldy, of course. No, it’s heavy, but in the most pristine way. Were you to take my prior camera (the Canon EOS-R) and put on a plastic lens like the Canon 35mm f/1.8 RF, you’d be in the same weight class. But the weight on the Q2 is so much more balanced, so much more 50/50 between the body and the lens. The Q2 is a single unit with a non-detachable lens, but the camera as a whole feels like one complete unit in a way I’ve never felt before.

The magnesium alloy body provides the backdrop and housing for the entire package. It feels robust, but also as though it’s a work of art. I certainly wouldn’t want to drop the camera for fear of damaging it, but well recognize it would do damage if I were to drop it on someone’s head.

The Q2’s buttons, lens rings, and switches are all robust and basically perfect. Everything clicks wonderfully, especially the aperture ring. The manual focus ring is focus-by-wire (read: digital), though it’s surely the best manual focus ring I’ve tried. The little thumb-indebted thingy is wonderful for practicing zone focusing as well.

There are a few other things I really like about the Q2 camera body that I haven’t seen on other cameras:

• The strap lugs are angled forward and positioned in such a way as to avoid a lot of body damage by any metallic lens strap rings you may attach. I remember attaching this Cooph strap to an old Fuji X-Pro 2 back in the day and those metallic rings quickly wore out the edges of the camera. That doesn’t happen with the Q2.

• The battery mechanism is perfect. You flip the silver switch on the bottom of the camera to release the battery, but the battery doesn’t fall out on the spot. Instead, you have to press it in once more to unlock the battery and remove it from the camera body. It’s perfect — you can’t accidentally drop the battery to the ground, yet inserting the battery is a piece of cake. The battery door is one of the worst experiences of my EOS-R, so you indeed can get this wrong on a camera.
• The SD card door clicks open in such a satisfying way. It opens and closes with a meaningful click and provides that extra kick of confidence.

The Q2 has an incredible build, there’s no doubt. And it’s this build quality that provides the backdrop for the rest of the qualitative features of the camera. Without a sturdy build, you can’t get that feel. And without the feel, you can’t experience what Leica wants you to experience.

The Featureless Q2

You don’t know what you got until it’s gone.

It took removing features for me to discover what I truly want in a camera.

My first perusal through the Q2’s menu was unlike anything I could have imagined.

Getting into the “Main Menu” is sort of annoying — first you hit “Menu” on the back of the camera, then tap the hamburger button with your finger, then scroll down to “Main Menu” at the very bottom of your Favourites list, and hit the right arrow button. Annoying.

But once there, you don’t have a whole lot to walk through.

There are only five menu lists, ranging from exposure compensation and Leica styles through to a few video settings and the rest of the camera’s meta information.

There’s so little in these menus. It’s such a breath of fresh air.

I worked through each setting and had a general understanding of what each feature and setting could do the very first time I picked up the camera. (Other than video; I’m not into video.) I understand the bracketing settings. I understand the style settings. There aren’t crazy recipes for capturing moving dogs, trains, and tiny children’s pupils from 100 feet away moving at the speed of light.

There’s what you need and very little more.

It’s this lack of features which instills a certain confidence over the camera. You pick it up and you lord over it, not the other way around. You can use the Q2 as a tool, quickly, and know you used the tool to its fullest.

I’m not advocating for dumb cameras. I’m simply advocating for amateur photographers who don’t need 40fps burst rates to embrace the featureless menus.

Paying more for less features seems to be a Leica cultish thing. But I am getting a better sense of the notion with the Q2.

The Sensor

The Q2’s 47MP sensor is what you came for and it’s probably the one thing I’m not glowing and gushing over.

There are a few aspects to a sensor in my little world:

• The size — I am firmly in the camp of the bigger the sensor, the better your image quality. I know this is surely going to be a shortsighted comment for my friends reading, but it’s starting to become engrained. The smaller the sensor, the less happy I am with a photo. A full-frame sensor in a camera body this size is magnificent.
• The colour — Whether the Leica vibrancy and contrast comes from the sensor or the glass is beyond my realm. What I do know is I’m capturing photos at about 1/3rd a stop underexposed, which saves highlights and allows for some deeper colours in the editing process. It’s those deeper colours I am swooning over — just look at some of these photos! I have never seen colour like this straight out of my camera, let alone after a few edits in Lightroom. I’m giddy and have never been so happy with the artistry I’m seeing in my photos.
• The file size — Finally, the elephant in the room — if you want to shoot Leica raw DNG files, you’re going to be met with 86MB photo files. That’s 10 photos per gigabyte. I am chomping through my Lightroom cloud storage like a child with candy. The files are magnificent. You want to shoot more and more. But I am deleting at least 10x the photos I used to delete for the sake of saving space on my memory cards and Lightroom subscription.

And none of this mentions the megapixel count! At 47MP, there’s a fair bit of detail here, and it’s often surprising how much cropping you can get away with without anyone noticing. A trained eye will quickly pick up on a photo shot at the Leica Q2’s 75mm frame-line focal length due to the compression of the background. For those quick Insta stories though, you can snap, crop, alter, re-crop, and alter some more without skipping a beat. It’s fun and an entirely new way to shoot, altogether.

Overall, I love the Leica Q2’s sensor and image quality. I just have a hard time with the file size. I need new, larger SD cards and a significantly larger Lightroom storage plan.

The Shutter Sound

I recently shot a photo of a few folks in the office using the Leica Q2’s self-timer. After counting down the 12 seconds and the front amber LED blinking, the shutter fired.

Everyone looked at me as though something must have been wrong. “Did the picture get taken?”, “I guess we’ll have to do it again.”, and “I thought you said this was a really good camera?” were all blurted out instantaneously.

Another giggle moment, for sure.

Of course the photo had been taken.

But not so obvious was that shutter sound. The Q2’s shutter is discrete and unassuming. It comes across as little more than a subconscious sound, like the distant birds chirping when you’re not paying attention. The sound is short and crisp. It’s also complete and satisfying — you hit that shutter button, hear that click, and satisfyingly bring that camera back down to your side knowing your capture was perfect. It’s such a wonderful sound.

And I think I have a reasonably extensive list of camera experience to compare to! I’ve tried Canon cameras, Fuji cameras, Sony cameras, Olympus cameras. I’ve played around with Nikon cameras, Ricoh cameras, GoPro cameras, and more. And yet still, the Leica Q2’s shutter sound caught me off-guard. It is the most beautiful shutter sound I’ve ever experienced.

Other Anecdotes

Of all potential devices in my household, the Q2 is the most likely recipient of a long-term review — a review after, say, a year or two of use. So I won’t work to cross every T and dot every I here. Instead, here are a few more anecdotes I’ve found interesting in my first two or three months with the Leica Q2.

• I use the included metal lens hood — which is, I believe, the only metal lens hood I’ve ever used — for two reasons: to increase contrast and reduce flaring, and to protect the front element from dings and bumps. Otherwise, I wouldn’t use it. The lens hood is an eyesore. Because it’s metal, it loses black paint pretty easily (though this does lend to a more “used” look, which ain’t half bad). And it’s loud when you bump it against anything. The Q2 looks significantly better without the lens hood.
• The unboxing experience is the very best I’ve encountered. You unload the camera and accessories by pulling out each box from the package like you pull out drawers in the kitchen. Each accessory is packed in small fabric baggies. Apple’s minimalist unboxing experiences have been dialled in, but Leica’s maximalist approach is one for the ages as well.
• My used Q2 was lucky enough to come with two first-party Leica batteries. Thank goodness. First, the Q2’s battery is worse than the Canon EOS R I’m coming from. Second, these batteries are stinking expensive. I’ve not yet shot out a battery from 100% to 0% (I’d need a larger SD card for that to hold all the massive files), but I get down to 50% way more than I used to.
• The battery charger is laughably ginormous and includes a lengthy cord. I travelled with the Q2 the first week I owned it and the charger quickly became the least appreciated accessory to be carried on that trip.
• I’m simply not a fan of the Leica Fotos app. I have a Lightning-to-SD Card adapter for transferring DNGs to Lightroom on my iPhone. This adapter provides at least 20x faster import speeds than the Fotos app.
• The Leica Q2 is a perfect, perfect fit for any of the Leica x Cooph rope straps. I’d recommend getting a double-length rope strap, though I do like the regular length one I have. It’s not an ergonomic strap. It’s not utilitarian. It’s very expensive. But that Cooph rope strap takes the Leica Q2 aesthetic to a whole different level.
• I have not enjoyed shooting product photos with the Q2 as much as I was hoping. Natural light photos beside a large window work great, as do the occasional semi-macro shots I like to take. But anything that involves an off-camera flash — a Canon-specific Godox flash, to be sure — hasn’t worked out as well as I’d like. Perhaps more investment in education and new lights would help out here.
• The Q2 has a back button right beside the thumb inset for switching framelines when shooting. The lens shoots a 28mm image regardless, but switching the framelines between 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 75mm provides a sort of “in-camera crop” that imports directly into Lightroom. If you want to recompose the shot in Lightroom, you can do so — it’ll simply look as though the image is cropped on import. Things get a bit fuzzy at the 75mm frameline and the photo doesn’t have the correct compression for a regular 75mm photo, but it’s kind of nice to have every now and then to focus your eyes on the part of the photo you want to focus on.

Wrap Up

I’ve been stopped a total of three times to admire the Leica red dot and one of those times happened to be in the Toronto airport. It’s clear I live in an area where technology and cameras are both less common and less appreciated.

If anything, my experience has been the opposite — folks look at the Leica Q2 around my shoulder and write it off as an amateur’s camera. It’s small, doesn’t have a huge lens, is ultra quiet, and shoots 28mm photos. Because good photos are the ones with blurred out backgrounds, right?

This makes the Leica Q2 perfect for our family right now. I can take the Q2 anywhere. Its unassuming and unobtrusive nature makes it excellent for snapping photos of the kids, street photos of cool architecture, sights, and colour, and photos of bits and bobs throughout the day. I even take the Q2 to the office most days because it so easily fits into my Bellroy work bag.

I’ve been hoping a two or three month usage period would allow the Leica allure to gloss over and for reality to set in. I always want to sound genuine in my commentary.

The allure is still there, fortunately (unfortunately?).

The Leica Q2 has taken my photography to an entirely new level. Both in confidence and, I think, in actual output. But mainly in confidence. Which is an extraordinary photographical aspect I had never before considered.