How To Make Laptop Screen Brighter Than Max

Staring at a dim, poorly lit screen is no fun at all! It hampers your productivity and makes consuming media a nightmare. Most of the time, you’d expect that your screen is fine, and that it’s putting out enough light to get what you need done – but if not, you’re going to notice fast, and it could well ruin your experience.

This is especially true when streaming – dark scenes tend to look awful under compression anyway, so having a screen that’s too dark to make out what little detail is remaining is just a terrible way to experience media! 

<img alt="How to make laptop screen brighter than max" data-lazy- data-lazy-src="https://kirelos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/echo/How-to-make-laptop-screen-brighter-than-max.jpg" data-lazy- height="667" src="data:image/svg xml,” width=”1000″>

With modern HDR content requiring extra-bright screens to get the most out of too, brightness has never been more of a concern for media consumers – and if you have a screen capable of taking advantage of HDR media, then maybe some of these tips will help you improve the picture quality!

Don’t worry though – there are some ways that you can squeeze a little more out of your laptop screen!

Of course, it might take a little work, which is why this guide is here for you! Just a few simple tips and you’ll be able to get the most out of your screen! Now, of course, when tinkering, it’s always done at your own risk – but we’re not going to be making any dangerous adjustments to the hardware here.

We’re simply looking to squeeze more out of the machine, not push it past safe limits and damage it!

Keyboard Controls

First of all, let’s start with the more obvious and standard ways of adjusting your screen brightness.

Now, if you were on a desktop tower PC, you’d likely have an array of buttons on your monitor, letting you get deep into the menus and really tinker to your heart’s content.

That’s not really an option on laptops – the monitor is part of the device, and there’s just not as much available for you to adjust! 

However, that doesn’t at all mean that you can’t adjust your brightness as you like! If you ever find yourself thinking that your laptop screen is too dark, the first thing you should do is have a good look at your keyboard.

Usually on the F1-F12 keys on a laptop keyboard, you’ll find some icons, often (but not always) in blue.

These icons usually represent something that can be done using a combination of the F1-F12 keys, and the “fn” key (which stands for “function”) on your keyboard. 

Have a look for the screen brightness buttons – they’re usually represented by symbols that are intended to resemble the sun. A brighter sun with more rays, symbolizing an increase in the brightness, and a dimmer looking one to symbolize decreasing the brightness.

Pressing these in combination with the “fn” key will adjust the brightness of the screen up and down – these buttons should be your first port of call when looking to adjust the screen brightness!

Windows Settings

Windows 10 itself also has some ways that you can adjust the brightness of your laptop screen.

First of all, you can adjust the brightness in the Action Center. There are a few ways of accessing this – the easiest is to press the Windows key on your keyboard and the letter “A” at the same time.

You can also enter the Access Center by clicking on the icon that looks a little like a square speech bubble in the bottom right of your screen – it’s to the right of the clock.

So, to reiterate, press Win A together, or click the speech bubble icon near the clock – they’ll both open up the same menu.

This will give you a brightness slider to adjust – which could well just be what you need! There will be other options too which could well prove useful.

For instance, maybe your battery settings are making your laptop screen less bright than it could be – in which case, you’ll find the ability to adjust it here too!

There’s also a “night light” setting, which can be great for reducing eye strain in lower light levels, but with the caveat that it will adjust the brightness and color cast of your laptop.

It’s a fantastic feature, but it’s always best to be aware of how it affects the display – this might well be something that you’ll get good results from adjusting!

Color Calibration Settings

There’s one final way of squeezing a little more out of your monitor – the Color Management settings menu in Windows 10. This is another way to boost the output of your laptop display – in fact, this particular trick will work even on a desktop!

One thing to bear in mind is that this will affect the way colors display on your monitor – but if you’re using this step because nothing else has worked for you, then perhaps that’s not as pressing an issue as getting more brightness out of your monitor! 

Press the Windows button on your keyboard, then (without clicking anything else) type the words “Color Management”. Very quickly, the Color Management menu should pop up as an option – click it to open it.

This will lead you to a daunting looking page, but don’t worry, it’s fine – nothing you do here is permanent, and doesn’t affect the hardware itself, so these settings should be pretty safe for you to adjust.

Click the “Advanced” tab to open it, then click the “calibrate Display” button – it has a little shield symbol next to it, indicating that you need to have admin access to use this tool.

Once it’s open, you’ll be run through a software wizard that will give you options for adjusting your screen. This should allow you to make the adjustments you need – and remember, none of this is permanent, so if you don’t like it, it’s always possible to change things back!

Conclusion

If you were feeling that your laptop display just wasn’t cutting it, then hopefully this has helped you push your laptop display a little further, and helped enhance your computer use!