Accurate Laptop Battery Status

good
key review info
application features
  • Statistical time prediction
  • (4 more, see all...)

Portable computers have taken over the world. Netbooks, notebooks or laptops, they are all over the place now offering you portability and wireless Internet connection. But as good as the battery of such a device is and as much as you strive to preserve the power, having accurate knowledge on the juice level is always a good heads up to wrap up all your work before being cut off abruptly by power failure.

Windows provides the necessary means of telling the remaining power in the battery so you generally have an idea on the time left to finish your job. But the information provided is limited to the percentage of remaining battery and the time left to use the computer without charging.

BatterBar Pro is a battery meter that shows the amount of juice left in the battery and converts it into usage time but it will also show the time needed for a full battery charge, battery wear, and calculate the full lifetime, discharge rate and capacity (current and total). On top of this it can be configured to pop up notifications at a user defined time left or discharge percentage.

The application comes in two versions, Free and Pro, the differences between them consisting in the $7.50 price and the number of options and flexibility. Once installed, you benefit from the complete version of the software for 30 days. After that, the app will turn into the Free version and cut out low battery and critical battery notifications, audio alerts and customization of 20 settings.

The moment you finish installing BatteryBar it will automatically camp in the taskbar, right near the system tray area. A split second is all it needs to read all the battery-relevant data and display all the information. A simple hover over the button in the taskbar provides all the details you need to accurately track battery discharge/charge level.

At a glance BatteryBar offers particularities such as charge percentage, capacity in mWh, discharge/charge rate, battery time left and full lifetime as well as battery wear. The charge/discharge values depend entirely on the state of the A/C (connected/disconnected).

The Preferences area is strictly for the Pro version of the app so with the trial period over do not expect access to this area until the $7.50 bill is paid. The panel includes general options for displaying time at startup, enabling the use of statistical time estimation, low battery notification, setting up warning levels or resetting all configuration to default.

The notifications and the threshold they are triggered by represent by far the most important set of settings. And BatteryBar Pro lets you enable both critical and low battery popups as well as low battery audio alerts. These notifications can be shown based on percentage or time remaining.

The flexibility of the software extends to the fact that you can fix the percentage and time remaining for low level battery and critical battery level. Should you by any chance miss the notification (although it stays there until you click somewhere else on the screen) the color of the taskbar button will automatically change according to the notification type drawing nearer to the red alert level with battery usage.

Testing the accuracy of the application revealed that it is more trustworthy than Windows reading on the test laptop we faced it with. The percentage was almost always the same but on low battery level the time remaining differed by even 50% in some cases. This happened as the juice in the battery lessened, and while Windows showed a whopping 8 minutes left, BatteryBar gave the battery a lasting of only 4 minutes or so. With this limited amount of time left a few minutes could make the difference between saving documents in time and losing your work, unless hibernation mode isn't enabled in such drastic cases. In the end it turned out that the software alternative was the closest to the truth.

The moment the laptop was about to suck the last drop of power from the battery it automatically entered into hibernation saving all the data to disk allowing for the work to be resumed when connected to a power source and charging.

We tested the software to see how it does when battery drainage is high (about 8% of power left) and changed the power plan from High to Low Performance. It would have been only natural to see an increase in time left but BatteryBar did not even blink and kept to its opinion, contrary to Windows' reading. The upside is that BatteryBar was right and the computer hibernated when the application said it would.

The Pro version of BatteryBar poses no trouble when it comes to configuration of the options and reading the information is easy and comfortable. You benefit from notifications triggered either by reaching a specific percentage or a particular amount of time left of the battery's autonomy. More than this, the application will perform the same reading while the notebook is charging providing details on the time needed for a juice fill-up.


The Good

Multiple notification support and audio alert are among the best features of the application, but the amount of information provided at a simple hover of the mouse over the taskbar button is simply overwhelming.

The Taskbar button can be configured to show remaining battery life in percentage, time or alternate both of them. Its context menu includes both application options as well as the laptop's power plans.

The Bad

The version tested is currently in beta stage and some bugs may make their presence known, although we haven't bumped into any.

The Truth

BatteryBar makes for a good, accurate meter, even if in beta stage. You have 30 days to test the fully functional version and decide if you want to pay the $7.50 or not. However, it scored well during our testing providing accurate info on battery status and remaining time to use the laptop.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 3
features 3
ease of use 3
pricing / value 3


final rating 3
Editor's review
good