Cheap insurance against dirty power
Pros:
Very reliable. Gives me about 7 minutes of runtime during power sags and outages.
Cons:
Bigger than a surge protector. Because of the battery, shipping it costs bucks and bucks.
The Bottom Line:
Worth the investment for a personal computer. You might consider the 500VA unit ($20 more) which would yield 10-14 minutes of battery runtime.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Battery backup / UPS units used to be reserved for business applications only, because of their high price. There is a real science behind these products and it takes a lot of R&D for a company to put out an effective uninterrupted power supply (UPS) product. Thanks to APC, anyone who can afford a $500-4000 desktop computer can also afford the $40 or 50 dollars it takes to protect it against dirty power.
Even in my high-revenue tourist trap community, our power cuts in and out during high usage and storms. Just an example for you, it's June 27, 2006 as I'm writing this review. In the last month, I can remember three occasions where I came into work and noticed my computer had been running on battery. The little power icon was in the corner, indicating that the battery was "charging". Mind you this is NOT a laptop. Thanks to the BE350R, my system was still running, all my documents still open and not a care in the world about the dirty AC power that plagues my office.
I would recommend this as cheap insurance for *anyone* buying a new machine. You think I want to blow $500 on a new computer just because the Power Company couldn't "keep it up" past 90 volts? No ma'am. One more thing, if you're a storage junkie and you have a second hard drive, get a bigger unit, okay?
