The 3 easy ways to adjust screen brightness on Surface Pro

Microsoft Surface Pro is a 2-in-1 device that lets you switch between tablet and laptop by attaching a supported Surface Type Cover. It has the power of a laptop and the portability of a tablet with touch and ink support.

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 is implemented differently by manufacturers. In this tutorial, we will show you 3 easy ways to change screen brightness on Surface Pro with or without a keyboard attached.

Note The following methods will apply to the Surface Pro lineup including Surface Pro (1st Gen), Pro 2, Pro 3, Pro 4, Pro (5th Gen), Pro 6, Pro 7, Pro X, and Pro 8.

Table of contents

Adjusting Surface Pro brightness: with Surface Pro Type Cover
Adjusting Surface Pro brightness: with Windows Quick Actions
Adjusting Surface Pro brightness: with Windows Settings app

1 Adjusting Surface Pro brightness: with Surface Pro Type Cover

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

Surface Pro 8/X
Surface Pro 5-7
Surface Pro 4
Surface Pro 1-3

Surface Pro X/8 Type Cover

Surface Pro 8 and Surface Pro X Type Cover come with a completely new design to match their new form factor. The new Type Cover has dedicated brightness control keys that are located on the F6 and F7 keys.

Press
F7
to increase screen brightness
Press
F6
to lower screen brightness

Surface Pro Type Cover (5th Gen or later)

Microsoft finally included dedicated brightness control keys on the keyboard starting from the 5th Gen Surface Pro Type Cover. You can now control Surface Pro’s screen brightness with a single key located next to the Esc key.

Press
F2
to increase screen brightness
Press
F1
to lower screen brightness

Surface Pro Type Cover (4th Gen)

The 4th generation Surface Pro Type Cover has many new design changes, yet it still doesn’t have dedicated brightness control keys. However, you can use the same shortcut keys as the previous generations to change the Surface Pro’s screen brightness.

Press
Fn
+
Del
to increase screen brightness
Press
Fn
+
Backspace
to lower screen brightness

Surface Pro Type Cover (1st, 2nd, and 3rd Gen)

Surface Pro Type Cover 1, 2, and 3 shared the same keyboard layout that is optimized for Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, 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 Pro’s screen brightness via the keyboard. They are:

Press
Fn
+
Del
to increase screen brightness
Press
Fn
+
Backspace
to lower screen brightness

2 Adjusting Surface Pro brightness: with Windows Quick Actions

The next easy way especially when you have no Surface Pro Type Cover attached to the device is by using Windows 10 or Windows 11 quick actions. To do so:

Windows 11
Windows 10

Open Action Center (Win + A)
By pressing the “Quick Action icon” located on the right edge of the taskbar.
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.

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.
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.

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.

3 Adjusting Surface Pro brightness: with Windows Settings app

Last but not least, you can also use the Settings app on Windows 10 and Windows 11 to change your Surface Pro’s screen brightness. To do so:

Windows 11
Windows 10

Open the Setting app
Go to Start Menu, find and open the Settings app.
Go to the “System” section and select the “Display” option from the list.
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.

Open the Setting app
Go to Start Menu and select Settings from the left edge of the start menu.
Select the “System” section
Select the “Display” section
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.

Conclusion

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