What our customer's say!"I know of a surge protector designer who deserves to get smacked around", I realize that this product is well past its point of relevance, as is evidenced by the fact that the 3 prior reviews on this product all date from 7+ years ago, but I just had a run in with several of these APC 350 VA units and as a result I'm feeling the need to vent.
As you'll probably note from the sparkling reviews this product has received thus far, it works very well in its capacity to prevent black outs/brown outs/whatever else from affecting your machinery. It attributes much of its success to the robust battery found inside the unit, which provides power to electronics when your building's electricity fails. Hooray for batteries.
But here's something the other reviewers never encountered: An APC 350 VA whose battery needs to be replaced. A rational man might suspect that once the battery started to lose its muscle, a little red light might start flashing on the unit. The suspicions of a rational man, in this case, would be entirely wrong.
When the APC 350 VA's battery goes bad, it starts beeping. Not once every couple of hours, or once every couple of minute, or even once every couple of seconds, rather it beeps once every second. It's not a quiet beep, it's a "someone is breaking into my car and/or my house is on fire" kind of beep. There is NO WAY to get it to stop beeping, short of replacing the battery (which cost about $30, just taking the battery out doesn't get the beeping to stop either by the way), and as such the hideous design of this contraption disallows consumers to just use the 350 VA as a power strip once (something it is capable of doing, electricity still flows through this behemoth when it's in its panicky 5 alarm beeping mode) this giant battery has run out of juice.
So imagine yourself working on a proposal. It's late, you only have an hour to get this thing finished, your job is on the line here, when suddenly the powerstrip your computer is hooked up to decides that world war III has just been declared. So you pick the thing up, you look around for a switch to turn off the sound, but there isn't one. You hit the power button, but that shuts down all of the equipment that you have hooked up to the surge protector. You're left with a choice: Either try to finish your work while listening to this deafening beeping noise (and likely end up committing sepuku), or give up on your job and walk out on the proposal all together.
THAT'S why this surge protector is horrible. Eat poop APC, I only encountered your product for 30 minutes and I already can't stand you!
"Power Brick of Security", I've got 3 of these units and swear by them. First, at my office - everytime someone prints to the network laserwriter the power drops. Since I've had my APC it gives the audible beep of the power drop and kicks in so that my PC is not surged/fried everytime. The two at home have performed flawlessly in all sorts of thunderstorm conditions. The true backup time is dependent on how much you run - i.e. the monitor will kick your battery time down signifcantly, so be forewarned!
From a usability standpoint - this unit really addresses the need for multiple line-outs. Three of the six are backup power supplied to your critical electronics - the other three are normal surge protected. However, the spacing for the mega-large resistors from other peripherals actually: 1) fit in the 2 designated spaces without rendering the adjacent outlets useless and 2) because of the breadth and serious weight of the APC, the resistors stay perpendicular - instead of pulling out.
At this price it is very reasonable for a bit of security.
"Outstanding combination", This UPS falls right into the "sweet spot" for the average home PC. It provides surge, brown-out, and black-out protection, and gives you enough time to save your work and do a controlled shut-down. The price can't be beat for 350 volt-amperes of power, and the form factor (it looks like a power strip on steroids) makes it almost as unobtrusive as a regular surge suppressing power strip. Stick it under or behind your desk and forget about it.
One very nice feature is that it performs a self test every time it is turned on. It switches to battery power for about 5 seconds. So if you aren't sure if the battery is still good, you can just switch it on, and then immediately turn on one or more components plugged into it, and see if they stay up during the test. My last UPS did not do this, and one day the power blinked, and DOWN went my computer! That's when I went shopping for a new one, and my research led me to this unit.
The battery on this UPS is quite easy to get to as well, so replacing the battery when the time comes should be a snap. I had to get into the compartment as part of the installation process (you have to attach one of the wires to a terminal on the battery). Opening the compartment and manipulating the battery was straightforward.
Another cool feature is that this UPS can tell your computer to shut itself down automatically. You have to install some special software (comes with the UPS) and connect the UPS to your serial port with the supplied cable, and configure the software of course. I have not tried to use this feature, since I never leave my machine up unattended, so I can't say how well it works.
This is not a good choice for an unattended machine, like a server. For that you're going to want a UPS that gives you more like an hour of up time. If you plug only the computer into this UPS, you will probably get 15 - 20 minutes of up time, which just isn't enough for a server. You get about 10 minutes with the monitor plugged into it as well, which is a necessity for a home computer.
Anything with less than 350 VA is pretty much useless, so don't even consider smaller models. As it is, you shouldn't plug anything other than the monitor, computer, and a couple of small accessories (modem, etc.) into this one. For example, don't plug your printer into this unit!
If you are a member of "Sam's Club", you should look there for this UPS before buying it anywhere else. Sam's was selling it for around $80. I looked all over the internet, and no one beat this price. They were all right around $100.
"Very reliable!", This is probably the best combination of price/protection that you can get especially if you are a home user looking for reliable protection and level power without purchasing the more expensive and bulkier full size back ups. Recommended for workstations and PC but probably not sufficient if you're running a server. Don't expect to work on the backup time since it is minimal and gives only time to save your work and shut down. Overall I am very satisfied with the product.
