It is easy to switch to detailed information which add information about the total, designed and active capacity of the laptop in mWh, the charge and discharge rate of the laptop battery, the tension, wear level and last calibration date.

One of the most interesting functions of Battery Care is without doubt the monitoring of the battery’s discharge cycle. The program will suggest a full battery recharge every 30 discharge cycles. The software to manage laptop batteries can also be configured to automatically switch power plans based on the power source of the laptop.

The remaining battery time and charge percentage is displayed as a icon in the Windows system tray with additional information being displayed in a popup. Battery Care is an excellent laptop battery manager for the Windows operating system. It can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

A better notebook battery monitor is Power Meter Plus. The software is completely free for private use. It can be installed or used as a portable application and runs fine on all Windows operating systems prior to Windows Vista. So every Microsoft operating system that has been released after Windows 3.11 and before Windows Vista should be able to run this little application without problems.

Power Meter Plus will display a battery monitor in the left and / or right corner of the computer screen. That power meter appears gradually over time as the power levels drop and will be more prominent the less it gets. The meter will automatically move to the left or right side of the screen depending on the position of the computer mouse.

A few settings are provided that can be used to configure the notebook battery monitor. The critical battery level and the level when it is seen as full can be defined. It is furthermore possible to change the drain and charging colors and to display messages when the critical battery level is reached or when the power source is switched.