APP OF THE WEEK: Battery Widget? Reborn!

In the world of widgets, battery widgets are probably one of the most dominant when it comes to homescreens. Sure, we have a little battery icon in our status bar, but we want something prettier, BIGGER, and to be right there in our faces to let us know how much charge we have left. There are so many choices out there, and I myself, have gone back and forth with either having a widget, or not having one. It is a love hate thing, really. Recently I needed some space to fill on my main homescreen, so I grabbed my shopping cart and headed into the Play Store. Did not take long before I found one that stood out in front of the rest.

It was simply there in the title. “Battery Widget? Reborn!” exclamation mark and everything. Perfect title to get someone’s attention. So I went and downloaded the beta free version and the rest is history.

Battery Widget Reborn, takes the idea of the tradition battery widget, and steps it up a notch. First of all, it is not just a widget. If you hit the app icon you get a nice little menu screen with multiple options. First menu you get the battery info. More than half the screen is the circular battery indicator with the percentage of charge left in your phone. Underneath that gigantic indicator, you get an “empty in” time indicator that tells you how long you have left on your battery. It’ll read, “8 hours 13minutes”, and that time will update when the percentage goes down. Of course it will not be perfectly accurate, it is more of an estimation. Wouldn’t that be awesome if it knew exactly when you needed to start charging? Magical it would be. Underneath that, you get a battery usage button that leads you to your settings/battery screen. Then you get some power toggles you can choose if you would like. Just some added bonuses.

Swipe to the left, you get your battery’s history with a pretty little chart showing the percentage to time of day decline. Oh, did I mention the theme is Holo? It is so sexy looking. Underneath the chart, you will get the “current cycle stats”, which show discharging speed, as well as how long you have had it unplugged. Very detailed, which I think is pretty nice feature in a battery app.

Swipe to the left again, and you get some options for your notification area. This is where I was sold on Battery Widget Reborn. I was not to impressed by the widget itself, being that it was just the circular indicator with percentage in the middle. Was hoping for more themes, but instead, they give you the option to place the indicator on your status bar, AND have that battery history chart in your drop down notification bar. Sexy, sexy…SEXY. They took advantage of Jelly Bean’s expandable notifications, because at first, you will just see the time remaining in your noti bar. Spread it out, and you get battery chart magic. You do not necessarily have to have the chart there either. You can change it to, top battery consumers, or just the battery info. It also gives you some advanced options, so just incase you do not want the indicator on your status bar, you can still have the time remaining and history chart when you bring down your noti bar. You also are given the choice on having the power toggles in your noti bar as well, if you are not rocking an AOKP, or CM ROM.

When placing the widget on your screen, you are given, yet again, more options. Options are good. You can choose between the percentage left, or how many hours you have left to show in the middle of the indicator. Other options include, colors, thickness in batteryÂ indicator,Â click options, as well as adding a little drop shadow to the look of it. Like I said, I was not too impressed by the look of the widget, but I like the fact that it isÂ highlyÂ customizable.

I think the only disappointment I have with the Battery Widget Reborn, is that when I have messed with the notification settings, it disappeared from my noti bar and the only way I could get it back was to reboot my phone. But then during my video review, it worked just fine so Â go figure. Might be a slight glitch, or it might just be me. There is a free version and a paid PRO version in the Play Store. Give the free version a try, then fork over a couple bucks toÂ the dev for the excellent work he has done. Links down below for both, and let us know if you guys are using it and liking it. Check out my video review below as well, and make sure you hit the thumbs up button.