Brightness control user experiences

Windows 8 improves the brightness user experience by providing users with new and intuitive brightness controls, combined with the familiarity of fine-grained controls on the desktop in Power Options and Windows Mobility Center. Users have quick and easy access to change screen brightness from the Settings charm. When pressing a brightness hardware button, an overlay gives the user immediate feedback on the brightness change. Additionally, on systems equipped with an Ambient Light Sensor (ALS), Windows automatically calculates the optimal brightness level, which users can override from PC Settings.

In this section

Topic Description

Settings charm

The Settings charm is the user’s primary interaction point for setting the display brightness.

Hardware buttons (hot keys)

Many portable computers include hardware buttons or hot keys for changing the display brightness. Typically, users access these hot keys by pressing a function (Fn) button in combination with another key on the keyboard.

Ambient light sensor

On PCs that are equipped with an integrated Ambient Light Sensor (ALS), Windows’s Adaptive Brightness Feature will automatically calculate the optimal brightness level based on the brightness slider setting and current ambient lighting.

Desktop experiences - power options, Windows Mobility Center, and battery meter warnings

As in Windows 7, the Power Options Control Panel and Windows Mobility Center provide brightness sliders. These sliders have the same effect as the slider in the Settings charm fly out – moving the level up or down changes the display brightness level.

 

 

 

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