How to adjust screen brightness on Surface Book

Microsoft Surface Book is a high-performance laptop with exceptional power and unprecedented versatility as a laptop, powerful tablet, detachable touchscreen, and a portable studio. Most laptops are designed with built-in keystrokes for controlling various laptop functions such as volume up or down, brightness adjustment, controlling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Camera, and media controls.

If you are new to the Microsoft Surface devices or Windows ecosystem, you probably can’t figure out how to control the device’s behavior including the adjusting screen brightness that implemented differently from manufacturers. In this tutorial, we will show you 3 easy ways to change screen brightness on Surface Book with or without a keyboard base attached.

Note The following methods will apply to Surface Book lineup including Surface Book (1st Gen), Surface Book 2, and Surface Book 3.

Table of contents

  1. Adjusting Surface Book brightness: with Surface Book Keyboard
  2. Adjusting Surface Book brightness: with Windows 10 Quick Actions
  3. Adjusting Surface Book brightness: with Windows 10 Settings app

1 Adjusting Surface Book brightness: with Surface Book Keyboard

First, the fastest and easiest way to control screen brightness on Microsoft Surface Book devices is by using the Surface Book keyboard. It allows you to step up or step down the screen brightness by 10 from a single activation. Since the Surface Book keyboard has changed its design over time since its first release, you might need some help to locate the brightness control keys. So, we have covered all major Surface Book keyboard layouts here:

1. Surface Book (1st Gen)

There is no dedicated brightness control media key can be found on the keyboard. However, there are key combinations that you can increase or decrease Surface Book’s screen brightness via the keyboard. They are:

  • Increase Screen Brightness Shortcut Key
    Fn
    +
    Del
  • Lower Screen Brightness Shortcut Key
    Fn
    +
    Backspace

Surface Book (1st Gen) Brightness Control Keys

2. Surface Book 2

Microsoft finally included dedicated brightness control keys on the keyboard. You can now control Surface Book’s screen brightness with a single key located next to the Esc key.

  • Increase Screen Brightness Shortcut Key
    F2
  • Lower Screen Brightness Shortcut Key
    F1

Surface Book 2 Brightness Control Keys

3. Surface Book 3

Microsoft has changed its media control keys again on Surface Book 3. To control Surface Book 3’s screen brightness:

  • Increase Screen Brightness Shortcut Key
    F7
  • Lower Screen Brightness Shortcut Key
    F6

Surface Book 3 Brightness Control Keys

2 Adjusting Surface Book brightness: with Windows 10 Quick Actions

The next easy way especially when you have no Surface Book keyboard base attached to the device is by using Windows 10 quick actions. To do so:

  1. Open Action Center
    By using your finger to swipe from the right of the screen or pressing the “Quick Center icon” located on the right edge of the taskbar.
  2. Adjusting the brightness slider 
    Use your finger or mouse pointer to move the slider’s pointer to the left or right to precisely specifying the brightness level range from 0 to 100.
Note If you can’t find the brightness slider under the quick actions, make you fully expand quick actions without collapsing it. You can notice the word “Collapse” and “Expand” on the top of the “Quick actions” area.

How to adjust screen brightness on Surface Book

3 Adjusting Surface Book brightness: with Windows 10 Settings app

Finally, you can also use the Windows 10’s Settings app to change your Surface Book’s screen brightness. To do so:

  1. Open the Setting app
    Go to Start Menu and select Settings from the left edge of the start menu.
    Windows 10 - Open Settings App
  2. Select the “System” section
    Settings App - Open System Page
  3. Select the “Display” section
  4. Adjusting the brightness slider 
    Use your finger or mouse pointer to move the slider’s pointer to the left or right to precisely specifying the brightness level range from 0 to 100.
    Settings App - Display Section

Conclusion

Those are the top 3 easy and quick ways to adjust or change screen brightness on Microsoft Surface Book lineup. However, Surface and Windows 10 have many more advanced methods to control screen brightness, color, and behavior for Surface Book. Hope we can cover those topics in our future posts.