Android phone brightness problem

[Gravemind]

Recently got a TCL IONx running Android 12 and the brightness seems to either be bugged, or some setting or app I just can't find is causing my issue.

Essentially the screen will dim itself after about 20s~ on the home screen doing anything, or after opening any app, even just Setting, and will not resume full brightness unless I toggle Adaptive Brightness on and off several times, and then manually set brightness to 100% again. And then it will just dim itself again later. It will even get darker and darker infinitely until the screen may as well be at 5% brightness if I open and close apps fast enough.

 

I've already tried the simple things like making sure Adaptive Brightness, Dark Mode, Reading Mode, Eye Comfort Mode, Eco Mode and every other conceivable thing I could find in settings and turned them all off.

I even temporarily turned off every app (system apps too) with permission to Draw Over Other Apps, and it made no difference.

I messed with Sleep and Screen Timeout/Lockout timers too, made no difference.

Tried 3rd party apps to try and force the brightness to always be "true" 100% but they either do nothing, or "100%" to them translates to 35% to my phone for some reason.

All apps are updated, phone is updated too.

 

Any ideas?

Any apps/tweaks that will force the screen to always actually stay at max brightness? I also tried contacting technical support but they're a dead end.

[SpookyCitrus]

I mean it's a pretty poorly rated budget smart phone, so not really surprised. A few other posts online about it and other QC issues would leave me to believe it's just a bad display or buggy software.