One on the things I hate about the XPS 13 is that the display automatically dims based on the screen's darkness. I'm not talking about the adaptive brightness in the Power Settings. The Dell "feature" is cooked into the BIOS and isn't adjustable.
It's super distracting. Especially in Photoshop with the dark background. The screen dims. It's a power saving thing.
Does the Surface Book do this too?
The Surface line has 2 features, one that is implemented by Microsoft on purpose, and the other it is Intel crap that you can't disable:
The laptop feature an ambient light sensor which control the back light of the LCD display based on the environment you are in. That can be disabled in the Settings panel.
The second feature is dynamic contrast ratio, enabled by default by Intel, which Intel calls "Dynamic Power Saving Technology" (said in a great voice) This plays with the colors at a software level, meaning you have significantly reduce colors as it does a quick processing job. If you display a gradient, you'll enjoy the mass amount of shifting stepping.
This features DOES NOT save battery. I tested it. And in reality, it consumes more battery life, as in dark content it makes you want to increase the screen brightness to see it. So it has the reverse effect of they were trying to do. This should surprise no one. I wont' be surprised if part of the drivers from their graphics solution is outsourced on the cheap.
Sadly, you can't disable it. Normally, you would go in the Intel Control Panel, and you disable it (although it has tendency to FORGET that you disabled it and re-enable itself), however, and this is sucky part from Microsoft, because Microsoft likes it's system totally junk/bloat free, it installs ONLY the core drivers. Which is amazing, and plays part into why the Surface line give such a great experience. But, now, this feature can't be disabled.
Since I have my Surface Pro 2 (oh yes, this problem is nothing new), I have been battling at every drivers release from Intel fighting in providing a solution to Surface users to disable this Intel feature. Sadly, with me focusing all my energy on job hunting (I also work at the same time), it has put breaks in the app development. I am trying to have some free time for it, but it has been difficult. As it bugs me on my side, you can bet this is priority one when I have free time.
So what can you do in the mean time? Simple, and that is the good news, stay plugged in. It doesn't kick-in (~95% of the time) when you are plugged in.
