Asus F3KA Dim Screen

I ordered the Asus F3KA from Newegg last week at a great price ($799) in lieu of the new Dell Vostro 1500 that I am unhappy with due to its grainly/sparkly screen and poor viewing angles. I felt that I was getting an almost comparable system (Radeon HD2600 vs. 8600M GT graphics) for almost $500 less than I paid for the Dell. The only difference was the Vostro has a WXGA+ screen while the F3KA is WXGA.

Out of the box, the Asus looked promising. However, I could tell immediately upon bootup that the screen was extremely dim compared to most recent laptops I've seen or worked with. Compared to the Vostro, it seems half as bright on the highest setting and has very creamy looking whites. Though it is clear and sharp (unlike the Dell) and has better viewing angles, it is considerable darker than any other LCD I have in the house, including my roommate's MacBook and the $350 Acer Aspire I purchased at Walmart for a Christmas gift.

At this point, I'm a little frustrated and wondering if there are any tricks to get the LCD to display any brighter. I've played around with the color settings and Splendid utilities, but they don't help too much. I can't see keeping this laptop (which I want to use primarily for gaming) if the current brightness is as good as it gets.

Anyone else have a similar situation with the F3 series?

 

If your brightness level is set to the brightest, that's as bright as the screen can be. In all honesty, Asus's F series are "budget" notebooks, and so they may use less superior parts than other Asus notebooks. If you are truly not satisfied, you should try sell it and purchase another system (newegg doesn't allow returns for laptops unless it is defective).

 

If it is really, really dark then it might also be a defective screen/inverter. The only way to really tell would be to compare it with a unit in a store. But I'm not sure if you can find a store...

 

Really my F3 has a very well lit screen. Make sure that you have it on the brightest setting. Hold the Fn or function, and F6 keys together. That is how you adjust screen brightness. Also make sure in your BIOS, that the LCD screen power is set to the highest setting for good brightness.

 

Sorry to inform you. The F3 is not really a budget notebook. Its a mainstream notebook. There are much cheaper series selling from Asus, and if the F series is budget, than clearly very few people could afford or would want to purchase a notebook from Asus. The F3ka is surprisingly cheap, but I think thats to compete with Dells Inspiron 1521. Otherwise you still pay over 1000 to get any other F3 notebook. They are fitted with non-budget parts like dedicated video cards such as the HD2600 and 8600M, so I have no clue what your talking about man.

 

Well, the F and A series are the budget line of the ASUS lineup. In fact, F used to be somewhat closer to the bottom than A, but it's not clear any longer.

What is the difference between "budget" and "mainstream" btw?

I think there is a very well defined concept of budget notebook with powerful components (CPU, GPU), and ASUS is clearly focused quite strongly in that area (with the many F-series notebooks and also some A-series).

But it's all terminology, anyway The bottom line is the quality of the notebook.

 

I've had it on the highest setting, but noticed after plugging the F3KA into AC power, the brightness jumped 20-25% and has a comparable brightness to two other laptops that I compared it to (but still not as bright as the Vostro screen which is rated at 250 nits).

However, it appears impossible to achieve this brightness level on battery. I went into the BIOS and disabled the "LCD Power Saving" setting--but it still dims on battery power. All of the Windows power settings are set to full brightness on battery and even though it reports being at max, it is still significantly dimmer than on AC power. I've searched this forum and appears that this is either a "bug" or "feature" of several Asus models.

If I can't fix this then I may need to try another system--I want a "mobile" system for work and gaming an hour here and there, not one tied to AC power for the best LCD settings.

Thanks, that's my feeling as well. It was a great price on a mid-range mainstream notebook. However, I do have an issue when a $350 Acer and $500 HP "budget" laptop have better screen brightness settings on battery.