So I see people keep claiming that screen brightness doesnt affect performance on smartphones and laptops.
However, this couldnt be further from truth.
First we must establish what affects performance:
- Heat
- Available power
Screen brightness affects both of these in smartphones and laptops.
Heat slowls down smartphones and laptops, but increasing screen brightness increases heat.
Also, available power is directly affected by screen brightness. There is simply no way around this. Full battery works faster than half full or nearly empty battery. However, screen brightness is a significant drain on battery, meaning there is less resources for other tasks, such as performance.
Maybe in regular computers this isnt a problem because power source for screen and computer is separated, but for laptops and smartphones, power source is not separated. Also, in smartphones, screen is very close to processor. So any increase in heat by screen goes directly to other parts of smartphone.
So to prove my theory, I did some tests, such as using phone at max brightness and at lowest brightness for certain time. And yes, lowest brightness generally saves battery, which results in increased performance indirectly.
In laptop, likewise, I notice a slight increase in performance when brightness is lower.
If brightness had no effect on performance, we would see same performance on max brightness and on lowest brightness. But we dont.