Battery Status

Laptops have the advantage over a PC of being capable of running for a limited time without actually being connected to a power socket. However, everything running on the laptop uses battery, and it’s a good idea to have applications like Battery Status at hand to keep an eye on status, and usage over time.

Setup takes you through an effortless process, letting you check out the set of features before you realize. With the main window up, monitoring status can be viewed right away. Values are shown in a real time updating graph, with the possibility to choose the level of detail to display. It’s also possible to switch to a display mode, which only leaves the graph visible, with all controls hidden.

The application is a little more than a battery monitor tool. On the one hand, it can show more details about your computer, such as runtime availability on current battery status, charge amount, power, various CPU details for speed, load, and temperature, Hard disk drive temperature, as well as auxiliary power source temperature.

With the startup option enabled, the application is ready as soon as you reach the desktop. Method of analysis is selected from a drop-down, menu, with options for smoothed, measured, or blended, as well as the option to pick an auxiliary power source to monitor, if available.

Some advanced details can be handled as well. For instance, a custom hotkey can be assigned to turn off the screen to save some battery life, have display dimmed when the PC is idle for some time, switch off Aero when on battery, and a few sliders for configuring hard disk power controls.

In conclusion, Battery Status is a powerful monitoring utility which comes in handy when frequently using your laptop while on the move. It shows a real time updating graph with configurable details, while advanced options can be set to save some power manually, or when PC is idle.