Better Outdoor Screen Brighness

I'm not sure if everyone knows this but, Thinkpads such as the T61P have a screen brightness in BIOS as well as that which as the windows drivers. The two seem to have a compound effect.

If your display is not bright enough, when the power is unplugged, you can raise the brightness in the BIOS and lower it with the power manager, as needed to save power.

With processors and GPUs taking up 35 watts each, the display brightness doesn't seem like such a big thing anymore.

 

Interesting. So this would mean that the BIOS actually limits the maximal power sent to the display when the OS says "screen brightness = full" for example. Does anyone else noted this behaviour? I'll surely give it a try this summer when outside. It would be interesting if someone has a light meter to do a precise comparison measurement.

I believe it would be more 35 Watts total. A 9 cells battery has about 85 watts / hour. This equates to about 2.5 hours of battery life if you drain continuously 35 watts total.

I agree that on a T61p, the GPU uses a bigger percentage of the total available power than on a T61. But the screen remains IMO one of the biggest energy consumer.

 

If you're stingy with processor and GPU use, then the display can still factor in. Every little Watt counts!