Kindle Scribe without front light feels paper-like but misses its missing feature

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I’m not shy about my love for notebooks, digital and otherwise. When Amazon announced a Kindle Scribe without a front light, my immediate reaction was intrigue. I might even be the ideal audience. I’m burnt out on traditional screens, and my favorite ways to unwind are reading books and scribbling nonsense. I realize that’s not exactly a high-stakes productivity workflow, but it is an honest one.

On paper (pun intended), a Scribe without a light guide layer should be Amazon’s most paper-like Kindle yet. At launch, Amazon touted a cleaner-looking E-Ink display and a more natural writing experience, plus better battery life and all the same reading and note-taking features as the standard and Colorsoft models. After a month with the device, though, I found myself missing the feature Amazon chose to remove far more than I appreciated the benefits of doing without it.