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, a powerful tablet, a 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, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Camera, and media controls.

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

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

1 Adjusting with Surface Book Keyboard

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

Surface Book (1st Gen)

There is no dedicated brightness control media key that can be found on the keyboard. However, there are key combinations that you can use to 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

Surface Book 2

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

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

Surface Book 2 Brightness Control Keys

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 with Windows 10 Quick Actions

The easy way, especially when you have no Surface Book keyboard base attached to the device, is 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. Adjust the brightness slider.
    Use your finger or mouse pointer to move the slider’s pointer to the left or right to precisely specify 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 words “Collapse” and “Expand” on the top of the “Quick actions” area.

How to adjust screen brightness on Surface Book

3 Adjusting with Windows 10 Settings app

Finally, you can use the Windows 10’s Settings app to change your Surface Book’s 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. I was adjusting the brightness slider.
    Use your finger or mouse pointer to move the slider’s pointer to the left or right to precisely specify 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 the Microsoft Surface Book lineup. However, Surface and Windows 10 have many more advanced methods to control screen brightness, color, and behavior for the Surface Book. I hope we can cover those topics in our future posts.