While the little battery icon in your laptop’s system tray gives you an approximate assessment of the power left, it doesn’t always work properly. Plus, the tiny image doesn’t allow you to see the correct values, especially if your attention is elsewhere.

Volt is a program whose primary function is to provide a visual display of the internal battery state of your laptop computer. A new, bigger battery icon can be set and moved around the desktop.

The app comes with a basic tab-based interface, but offers little in the visual department. You can enable a tray icon for the app, as well as choose which functions to show.

The second purpose of this app is to help you quickly shut down your laptop. Thus, in the tray icon menu you can choose to display any of the supported functions: Restart, shutdown, log off, hibernate, power off.

Also, the app supports a timer for either of the aforementioned tasks. This can be set for anywhere between a few minutes and ten hours. Scheduling the laptop to enter hibernation comes with an extra function: resuming activity after a preset amount of time.

The program can also warn you a few seconds before shutting down and even ask for your confirmation.

All in all, Volt is a nice utility, with plenty of customization options. Installing it is quite easy and fiddling with the setting shouldn’t be a problem, no matter the user’s level of experience.