A Nit (candela per square meter, cd/m²) is the standard unit for measuring screen brightness. One nit equals the light from one candle spread over a square meter. Most laptops are ~250 nits; the sun is ~1.6 billion nits.

For indoor office work, 250-350 nits is standard. For HDR content or bright rooms, you want 400-600 nits. High-end HDR monitors can reach 1000+ nits.

Foot-Lambert is an older unit used in Cinema. Standard movie theaters are calibrated to just 14 fL (about 48 nits). This is why movies look so dim compared to your phone!

Divide Nits by 3.426. For example, 1000 Nits ≈ 292 Foot-Lamberts.

Direct sunlight is massively bright (>30,000 nits). To compete, phones boost brightness (up to 2000 nits) which generates huge heat. The phone dims to prevent overheating and battery drain.

HDR displays can show much brighter highlights (1000+ nits) and darker shadows simultaneously. Standard (SDR) screens are capped around 300 nits video signals.

For readability outdoors or HDR impact, yes. But in a dark room, high brightness causes eye strain. You should calibrate your screen to ambient light (usually roughly 120 nits in dim rooms).

Lumens measure total light output (like a lightbulb). Nits measure light per area (how intense it looks to your eye). A projector has 3000 Lumens, but spreading that light over a huge screen results in only 50 Nits.

Displays can't sustain max brightness on the whole screen. 'Peak Brightness' is the max nits a small window (e.g., 10% of screen) can hit for a short time, usually for HDR highlights (explosions, sun glints).

Stilb (sb) is a huge unit equal to 10,000 nits (cd/cm²). It's rarely used for screens but common in high-intensity physics or describing light filaments.