Dim screen. Is something wrong or is this normal?

Hi, I've just bought my first laptop for university, a dell 1420 second hand, it's about 2 years old, and have noticed that the screen is quite dim. At night it seems ok and is useable, but is noticeably dimmer than any other screen I've ever used - comparing it right now to the new imac next to me - its about the same as the imac at 35% brightness. During the daytime indoors, it's still useable but is even dimmer, and is quite uncomfortable as I have to strain to see what is on the screen. If I turn it on outside, then it is unusable - the screen is a completely pale brown colour.

I've used the Fn + Up and Down keys to adjust the brightness, gone into power options in the control panel, and been into the BIOS, but all settings are set to maximum brightness. Have also installed the latest display driver.

Do screens get dimmer with age, or would something be broken? I've searched around and read about replacing the lcd and inverter, but these seem to come from people whose screens are completely blank.

Or is this normal for the screen on the laptop, and i'm just being picky?

Any suggestions?
Cheers.

 

LCD displays become indeed dimmer. CCFLs lose half of their brightness in approximately 5 years, while it takes presumably 10-20 years for LEDs depending on their colour (no long term field studies yet, only laboratory tests).
Additionally LEDs tend to be brighter than CCFLs in the first place. So if you compare an aged CCFL against a new LED (all LED displays still have to be considered new), you might notice a huge difference.

I don't know the Latitude 1420, but I guess it comes with a CCFL panel. Exchanging a CCFL panel is possible, but it might be hard and/or expensive to find a replacement and it's nothing you should do when you don't have experience with it.