I don't have any concept of the quality of paper, binding, etc., but I have always been baffled at the slightly more expensive notebooks (like Moleskins) with extremely stiff binding. Those things are difficult to even leaf through to read, let alone to actually write. I really don't get it. An extremely basic spiral bound notebook is vastly more usable. Some more expensive ones do have a very thin spin that can "fold" so that the notebook can lie open relatively flat (I don't know the terminology for any of this stuff), and those are okay too.