[Sipu]

Easy, a proper screen puts out north of 500-600 nits also on phones. Also people's eyes have variable sensitivity to light, nothing weird about that.

Besides, you don't stare straight at your lamps. You do stare straight at your screen. The "night mode" just kills all color on your devices. It's a lot worse option than dark mode.

[CrendKing]

Last time I calibrated my monitor for sRGB, the first step DisplayCAL ask me to do is to aim for 120 nits brightness. Sure a screen is capable of outputting 500 nits, doesn't mean you have to use its full capacity. Unless you guys are writing code or reading book under HDR mode all the time?

[krackers]

Fyi that 120 nits recommendation is probably because most color grading assumes you work in a dark-ish room. It's probably not a good value for office work.

[Sipu]

Proper gaming screens like Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 has a base brightness of ~600 nits and peak brightness of 2000. Iphone 14 pro's can also get pretty bright (1000-2000 nits). Also these gaming screens perform best in HDR mode even in regular desktop use as the dynamic 2048 zone backlight works properly there. The more dynamic range your screen has, the better everything looks. Your calibrated 120 nits is _very_ dark, and likely the overall dynamic range of your screen isn't very high either and the maximum brightness is 350-400 nits at most and contrast is absolute rubbish.