No talk about a user interface these days is complete without mention of a Dark mode. Although a black theme had been included with classic versions of Windows, this mode owes its resurgence to the mobile revolution.
With the advent of OLED displays on smartphones and tablets, dark modes took center stage in the world of mobile devices. Android and iOS took the lead, and desktop platforms followed soon after with dedicated dark modes that have mood altering properties.
Apple, of course, did a dandy job of it on macOS, winning accolades.
Microsoft soon followed suit, and added such an option in Windows 10 to fair praise. It still remains a work in progress there, and the story is not much different in Windows 11 as you might expect.
This is how things look in Windows 11 in Dark mode:
If darkness is your friend, or you primarily use your PC at night, then this is the mode you need so that your eyes thank you. And it must be said that this theme looks splendid in the new OS, especially when paired with the included set of stylish default wallpapers.
But again, we run into the issue of consistency.
There are many apps that still don’t have dark mode. Some probably will never do. One such example is the Task Manager, which as you can see in the image above still has to make do with a light look, even when the dark mode is enabled.
On the whole, however, dark mode in Windows 11 looks about as good as you would expect. Just that like most areas of the upcoming OS, it needs a fair amount of work to stand up to similar modes that are available on competing platforms.
