Hardware utility applications such as Notebook Hardware Control can estimate the amount of wear your notebook’s battery has experienced. Many are alarmed when their two-week-old battery registers a 16% battery-wear-level. Understandably, they are concerned that their battery is dying and will not be useful for long. Unless you were given an older battery with your new system, you can take those alarmingly high figures with a grain of salt.

Unless the application you are using was designed with the exact specifications of your notebook and battery, it is a generic program that estimates battery wear levels. There are countless variables that can affect the outcome of this estimate (notebook-specific configurations, BIOS and software settings, battery specifications, etc.). The utility can not possibly communicate perfectly with every notebook system and battery model available, so it takes what information it can and calculates its best guess. To give you an idea of how inaccurate these figures can be, my five month-old battery has 0% battery wear according to Notebook Hardware Control.