Laptop Mode Tools Review - Increase the Battery Life of Your Laptop

very good
key review info
application features
  • Enable and disable modules easily
  • (1 more, see all...)

Laptop Mode Tools is an application that gives users complete power over their laptop in an effort to enhance the overall life of the battery.

The battery is probably the most precious commodity for laptop users and we always find ourselves looking at the battery indicator. Sometimes we need to preserve any shred of power for something important or maybe we just need to be able to keep our laptop unplugged from a power source for longer.

No matter the reason, you can be sure that users will respond favorably if you ask them if they need a tool to help them manage their chosen device. For some strange reason, there are very few tools like this one on the Linux platform, and I don’t even know if there is an equivalent for Windows. If there is such an app for Windows users, then it probably costs a lot.

Laptop Mode Tools has been around for a long time, and more experienced users are quite familiar with it. It's usually used inside the terminal, but that’s a little bit more difficult to comprehend by regular users or by beginners. Fortunately, there is also a GUI available, even if it’s not the friendliest.

Installation

I tested Laptop Mode Tools in Ubuntu 15.10, and it’s available in the official repos. You can use the Ubuntu Software Center to install it, and in this case, it’s quite useful because it also provides the option to install a couple more packages, one for Ethernet devices settings and the other one for Advanced Power Management (APD).

You’ll be surprised to see that Laptop Mode Tools doesn’t show up in the installed application or it doesn’t run. Most likely it will ask to be started with kdesudo, which is not the case in Ubuntu. The idea is that no matter where you start this tool, you’ll need to be root in order to make any kind of changes.

Usage

Now that we’ve determined that you can run it from the launcher (it doesn’t even have an icon), how can we take advantage of what this application has to offer? The answer is simple. You will have to use the terminal, but firstly, you’ll have to enable it. A restart might be required:

code
sudo laptop_mode
The application itself can be started from the terminal as well. New users are actually in luck since there wasn’t a GUI to be used up until a few versions ago. Starting with the 1.64 release, you don’t have to muck about in the terminal and configuration files. All you have to do is check or uncheck the modules to be used.

Run this command in a terminal, as root:

code
sudo lmt-config-gui
This starts the GUI and shows all the modules that have been enabled on the system. Most of them are pretty clear, but you can find out more about what each module does. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of info on each module, but there’s an easy mode to find what each one does. And yes, you’ve guessed it, you’ll need the terminal:
code
man laptop-mode.conf
This is basically the manual that describes all the modules. It’s a terminal, but just scroll down and read what you want to know.

The Good

Laptop Mode Tools offers complete control over your laptop and enabling this application will most likely increase the battery life. It’s free and without any kind of competition.

The Bad

The only problem is that it’s not exactly friendly with new Linux users. People need to run it from a terminal; it’s not clear whether it’s active or not, and the manual is outside the application. It’s quite likely that many of these issues will be solved in upcoming releases.

Conclusion

If you don’t mind using the terminal for Laptop Mode Tools, and you want to get better battery life for your laptop, this is a great application, even if it’s not the friendliest one.
user interface 3
features 3
ease of use 3
pricing / value 5


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
NEXT REVIEW: KShutdown

Laptop Mode Tools (2 Images)

Laptop Mode Tools
Laptop Mode Tools manual