VPCZ11FHX/XQ screen less bright than 1600x1900 Z?

Hi, just got the VPCZ11FHX/XQ today after having it be stuck in 'shipping' for a couple of weeks. I've been using a CTO one with 128gb SSD and an i5 for a few weeks now.

Overall I like the resolution, don't really like the glossy lid (got the non-glossy black carbon for my CTO).

Hibernate speed is about twice as fast with the VPCZ11FHX/XQ - 17 seconds sleep, 8 seconds wake (from when windows starts its thing).

But my big concern is screen brightness.

I found the trick of disabling auto brightness, but the VPCZ11FHX/XQ is still noticeably less 'effectively' bright at showing white than the ones w/ 1600x900. I'm not a color geek so maybe it's not technically just brightness.

My main concern is reading text in ssh windows, where I prefer black on white. Even though I can use a smaller font more readably on the 1920x1080 and get say 54 vs 44 lines for comfortable viewing, I find that I really enjoy the 1600x900's comparatively higher max brightness. Ditto for web browsing; I wind up cranking res to the same effective size as on the 1600x900 to compensate for the brightness delta.

Has anyone else done a comparison?

I've used laptops that are 'only' that bright for years but for a $5000-ish laptop I'd like to have no doubt it'll be a keeper. Or, that the $2500 difference (I don't need the 4 x SSD) gets me more real usable screen space at all times.

Maybe any suggestions as to something I'm missing? I set everything to 100% in power management and turned off auto brightness.

Thanks

Avi