Increase the brightness

Bright sunlight can make your screen unreadable. This certainly applies to laptops with a glittering Display, as this type of screen reflects light. This has advantages for image quality when you are indoors, but it is more of a disadvantage when you are outdoors. Play around with the image settings to improve readability.

What always works well is to increase the brightness of your screen. Every laptop keyboard has a hotkey to adjust the brightness. Working at higher brightness will drain your laptop battery faster, so don’t set the brightness higher than absolutely necessary until you can no longer see your own reflection on the screen.

One laptop screen has a higher brightness than the other. This is expressed in nits, or how many candles are per square meter on your screen. For example, a screen brightness of 400 nits corresponds to the amount of light that 400 candles would emit in one square meter.

Isn’t it enough to increase the brightness? Then temporarily set a high contrast theme. You can do this in the Windows settings below Accessibility > Contrast topics or the hotkey combination Alt + Shift + Print Screen.

Adapt your environment

The image settings offer some help, but primarily provide conditions in which your laptop will feel comfortable. Find a shady spot or create shade yourself. You don’t need to build a complicated structure or spend money on a “sunshade” for your laptop: it may be enough to put a cloth over the device or use an ordinary cardboard box.

Keep your laptop cool

When you’re sitting outside with your laptop, your biggest concern isn’t an unreadable screen, but overheating. Every commercial device has an optimal temperature range. This can vary from device to device, but for most devices it’s between 10°C and 35°C. While the mercury doesn’t often rise above this limit in Belgium, your laptop can get pretty warm if you sit in direct sunlight for hours.

The first sign that your laptop has sunstroke is when the device starts to “blow” loudly. The built-in cooling blows warm air out of the device to keep the interior cool. If this air no longer escapes or simply gets too hot, it can cause serious damage to the processor and other internal components. There are applications that allow you to measure the internal temperature of your laptop: ideally it is around 75 °C.

In addition to providing enough shade, it is also important to place your laptop in a place where the fans can do their job. For example, do not place the laptop on a towel or pillow that covers the ventilation grilles. The worst thing you can do is leave a laptop in the car if it is in the sun: the device will break.

Be careful when charging

The downside of setting your screen to the highest brightness is that it will drain your battery faster, so you may need to reach for the charger sooner than you expect. However, be careful when charging your laptop in warm temperatures or direct sunlight.

Li-ion batteries, the standard battery type for today’s electronics, are sensitive to heat. If it gets too warm, it reduces the battery’s ability to hold a charge and accelerates deterioration. When charging, the battery generates heat.

Under normal circumstances, this is not a problem for your device, but if the interior is already very warm from the sun, a laptop turns into a sweat box. Therefore, it is best to recharge your battery away from the sun.