PassMark BatteryMon and BatteryInfoView both watch a laptop battery over time, but they visualise that time differently. BatteryMon is built around graphing — plotting charge and discharge as curves you can analyse. BatteryInfoView is built around a table — live fields on one view, and a timed log line every 30 seconds on the other. BatteryMon is a paid PassMark product with a trial available; BatteryInfoView is freeware. Which shape of data serves you depends on how you like to read a discharge. This is one of the head-to-heads on our Comparisons hub.
What BatteryMon does
BatteryMon, from PassMark, graphs battery charge and discharge over time, keeps a log file, supports multiple battery packs — up to four — and UPS devices, and can raise alerts on level, voltage and temperature thresholds. That combination points it at longer, more analytical sessions: comparing discharge curves, watching more than one pack, monitoring a UPS, or being notified when a threshold is crossed rather than watching the screen yourself.
Note the alerting point carefully, because it is a real gap in BatteryInfoView. BatteryInfoView has no documented alarm or notification feature beyond a tray tooltip. It will not warn you at a voltage or temperature threshold — indeed it has no temperature field at all. If threshold alerts are your requirement, BatteryMon is designed for it and BatteryInfoView is not.
What BatteryInfoView does
BatteryInfoView displays current status and information about the battery in two views. Battery Information (F7) refreshes every 10 seconds and shows Designed Capacity, Full Charged Capacity, Battery Health % (Full Charged divided by Designed), Current Capacity, Voltage, Charge/Discharge Rate, Chemistry, Power State, cycle count where provided, and estimated time fields. Battery Log (F8) adds a line every 30 seconds by default — and on suspend and resume — and since v1.20 each line can be auto-saved to a comma- or tab-delimited file. Save Selected Items (Ctrl+S) exports to CSV, tab-delimited, HTML or XML, ready for a spreadsheet. It is portable with no installation: get it from our download page (the official NirSoft file via /go/batteryinfoview).
Side-by-side comparison
| Aspect | PassMark BatteryMon | BatteryInfoView |
|---|---|---|
| Main view | Graphs of charge/discharge over time | Live table (F7) plus tabular log (F8) |
| Batteries / devices | Multiple battery packs (up to 4) and UPS support | The laptop battery or batteries Windows reports, in a single information table |
| Alerts | Alerts on level, voltage and temperature thresholds | No documented alarms or notifications |
| Logging | Log file alongside graphing | Log line every 30 seconds, auto-save to delimited file available |
| Health figure | Capacity data within graph/log analysis | Battery Health % headline: Full Charged ÷ Designed Capacity |
| Price | Paid (trial available) | Freeware |
| Install | Installed PassMark application | Portable, no installation |
Graphs vs tables — which reads better?
A graph shows shape at a glance: the knee where discharge accelerates, the plateau on charge, the overnight slope. A table shows values precisely: the exact mWh at 14:02:30, the exact rate on resume from sleep. BatteryInfoView’s log is deliberately spreadsheet-shaped — export it and you can chart it yourself in Excel if you later want the curve. BatteryMon gives you the curve natively, in the tool, as it happens. Neither is objectively superior; analysts who live in graphs will feel at home in BatteryMon, and anyone producing a report or comparing readings week to week will usually prefer rows they can save and diff. Our Battery Log guide and export guide show the tabular workflow end to end.
Which to pick
- You monitor a UPS or more than one battery pack: BatteryMon.
- You need threshold alerts on level, voltage or temperature: BatteryMon. BatteryInfoView cannot do this.
- You want a free, portable health check with an exportable log: BatteryInfoView.
- You are checking standby drain overnight: either works — BatteryInfoView logs a line on suspend and resume specifically so that interval is visible; BatteryMon graphs the same period.
- Budget is the deciding factor: BatteryInfoView is freeware; BatteryMon is paid with a trial, so try it before committing if graphs are what you want.
Verdict: pay for BatteryMon when graphing, multi-pack/UPS coverage or alerts are the job. Otherwise BatteryInfoView’s free tabular log covers the common cases — health percentage, drain rate, timed readings — with no install at all. See also BatteryInfoView vs BatteryCare for another long-running-monitor comparison, the full Comparisons hub, and the Alternatives overview.
Reading a discharge: curve first, or numbers first?
Consider a concrete test: you suspect a background process is draining the battery during sleep, or that runtime has collapsed since a software update. In BatteryMon you would watch the discharge curve form in real time, looking for the slope to steepen — the visual signature of extra draw — and you could set a threshold alert so the machine tells you when a level is crossed instead of you babysitting the chart. In BatteryInfoView you would open the Battery Log, leave it running, and afterwards read rows: capacity at each 30-second mark, the line added at suspend, the line added at resume, and the rate implied between them. Exported to a spreadsheet, those rows become any chart you want — but you make the chart; the tool hands you data, not pictures.
Price framing deserves one honest paragraph. BatteryMon is a paid PassMark product with a trial available, so the rational sequence is: trial first, on your real workload, and pay only if the graphing, multi-pack or UPS coverage, or the threshold alerts prove themselves in that trial. We deliberately do not print a licence price here, because prices change and PassMark’s own product page is the only authoritative source — check it in the session you buy. BatteryInfoView asks for no such decision: it is freeware, portable, and its tabular log costs nothing to try alongside the BatteryMon trial. Many users will find the free log sufficient, which is precisely why the trial matters — you should discover whether you are a graph reader before paying for graphs, not after. If you are, BatteryMon is a well-aimed purchase. If the exported rows told you everything, you have your answer for free.
Who maintains what
There is a quieter difference worth naming: what each tool asks of you over time. BatteryMon, as an installed paid product, is maintained as part of PassMark’s product line — you install it, licence it, and update it as part of that relationship. BatteryInfoView asks for nothing between visits: no account, no licence key, no background component, and updates only when you choose to fetch a new version — the current one is 1.27, from March 2026. For a single home laptop that difference is trivial. Across a support desk, a school fleet or a family of machines you touch twice a year, the zero-maintenance portable tool accumulates a real advantage, and it is a legitimate reason — alongside price — that so many technicians reach for the free tabular log first and keep the graphing tool for the jobs that genuinely need graphs.