BatteryCare 0.9.36.1

Overview

BatteryCare is an application designed to maintain your laptop’s battery by monitoring its discharge cycles and therefore expanding its life span and efficiency. It also displays important information about your laptop, like your HDD and CPU temperature. Depending on the situation, it can be set to automatically enable power-saving options for an even longer battery usage.

Installation

At some point during setup you will be asked if you want to additionally install Linkury Smartbar, a toolbar for your internet browser. Other than that, the installation is pretty smooth and quick, without the need to make any special settings. The program will work under any Windows XP, Vista and 7 OS.

Interface

This program becomes a part of your taskbar, allowing you to control it from there. You can hover over it to show a mini report about the status of your battery and laptop, or you can select to open the main window which has more detailed information and settings. It has a modern-style look that makes it more attractive and user friendly.

Pros

BatteryCare keeps track of how many times a complete discharge cycle is performed, and when it reaches the configured number it notifies you that a battery calibration is recommended in order to reduce the stress on your battery. Battery calibration is a method in which you let the battery fully discharge and then fully recharge it.

Whenever you disconnect the charger, the program can automatically disable power consuming visual effects, pause Windows services and switch to a different power plan to extend your laptop’s battery life. You are also notified of low battery levels, either in a percentage or time remaining form.

Because it is working in the background, it uses very low resources and it certainly doesn’t overload the system thus allowing you to use your laptop without causing any slow-downs. In addition, it periodically checks for updated versions that contain improved features and fixes to any existing bugs.

Cons

Some users reported that the installer didn’t work, in which case you have to download the portable version. We however did not encounter this issue during tests. We expect future versions will address this issue though as the developer is constantly releasing updates to improve the program and make the use of a laptop better and more comfortable.

Alternatives

BatteryBar and Battery Monitor are two great laptop battery-monitoring applications, they both have the ability to give very accurate information about your battery but they lack many of BatteryCare’s features, such as discharge cycles monitoring, switching to power saving plans and any battery performance improvement in general.

Conclusion

BatteryCare makes sure that your battery will have fewer chances of getting damaged and exhausted even after years of use, significantly boosting its lifetime. It is definitely a program worth installing and checking out.