Customer Reviews

APC BE350R 350VA Back UPS

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I'm not sure what happened with flagday1960's APC UPS, but I have had mine for over 2 years and it has performed flawlessly. Whenever I've had an electrical power outage, the APC's software notifies me that it has reverted to battery power, and informs when commercial electrical power has been restored. I can view the stats for my UPS - when and how long the last "event" (battery power activation) occurred, and the UPS current charge status. My 350R has only 6 outlets - 3 battery/surge and 3 surge, the current 350 model provides 8 outlets - 4 of each. While I can replace the internal battery of my 350R when it does die and is unrechargeable, I'll likely buy a new 350R in the near future, primarily for the extra 2 outlets.

The UPS arrived dead. I called tech support and was very quickly diagnosing the failure. For whatever reason, the UPS was not being powered by the wall outlet. No problem, they sent me a new one using overnight shipping. The product is great, and their support is amazing!

This works great. We get a lot of lightning at my house, and the power either flickers off for one to ten seconds, or goes off or a half hour occasionally. So, usually when that would happen, my computer would restart. Even on the shortest flicker. This solved that problem. It gives you an audio alarm when the power is out as well to warn you. There are various beeps that will let you know how much time you have left. If the power is out long, I'll shut down. I've never reached the end of the battery life, but I haven't tried to push it either. It's handy to have my DSL router plugged in too, because sometimes the power will go off but the phone stays on fine, so I don't loose connectivity either. I quickly ran out of sockets though, so you may want to count everything you'd like plugged in ahead of time. Non-critical things like speakers, scanner, printer, I have on a regular surge protector. It's become invaluable since I got it.

I bought this small model to keep my cable modem, router and external network drive alive during occasional brief power losses while working at home (the PC is a laptop with its own battery). It works fine for that purpose, although I'd want a lot more power if I had to run a desktop on it for more than a few minutes. There are two problems with it, though. One, if the alarm is enabled, there's no way to turn it off during a power outage except with software installed on a functioning computer hardwired via USB to the unit. Since my laptop is wireless, it's not connected to the UPS. I have it connected to my desktop unit, but that's not on the UPS - Catch-22. If we lose power at night, my choices are listen to the beeping; fire up the laptop, switch the USB cable and shut the alarm off via the software; shut the UPS off or put a pillow over it.

The other problem is the data input on the UPS is an RJ45 (ethernet) socket. If you ever need a new cable, it uses a special USB to RJ45 cable that costs almost as much as the unit itself ($25 - $35), which is ridiculous.

I have the six outlet previous model of this product. I have a home office and have plugged two models of Macs into this unit and it has worked like a charm for me. My house has pretty crappy 1950s wiring and my neighborhood has all above ground wiring and lots of trees. This leads to many power outages and I have not had any problems with surges even though my husband's computer was killed by a surge (he doesn't have an UPS). It gives me plenty of time to shut my machine down and save my work in the event of an outage.

I agree that on my model the outlets are a bit too close together to allow for my giant plugs. I also agree that the alarm beep is a bit annoying.

I bought this UPS to help protect my Tivo and TV. It worked fine out of the box and when I pull the power it keeps my TV and Tivo going fine.

I've had this UPS for around a year. The battery has degraded to the point where it only runs for about 10 seconds before giving up, with a 150 watt load (measured with a watt meter).


Getting a replacement battery from APC costs $20 plus $10 for shipping, so it's either $30 for a new battery, or $39.00 for a whole new unit - seems like a waste.

So I have Verizon FiOS, which means if my router goes out, then my phone is dead, and my internet is dead, and possibly also my TV. I thought I should have a backup supply. So I bought this thing just really to supply the router in the event of an outage.

Anyway, I let it charge around 24 hours, plugged my router in, and simulated a catastrophic failure by shutting off the house power. I was on the laptop, connected to internet, with absolutely no problem for 25 minutes, and I am sure MUCH MUCH longer if I would have continued the test. But I thought 25 minutes was surely enough to convince the product was what I wanted.

So I recommend it. Note: When you get this item new, it is actually YOUR responsibility to connect the battery terminals before you plug it in. This can be a little harder than it looks. Just for the record.

By the way: I haven't even installed the software. If I read the reviews correct, it stinks anyway, and you don't really need it if you're going to use it as a light backup for like a cordless phone or a router.

APC, generally, makes very good quality UPS's. This is an entry-level UPS, so do not expect more than a couple minutes of runtime if you have a computer plugged in to it. (This was purchased to provide backup to a cordless phone base station. In this application, the UPS provides 90+ minutes of runtime.)

One thing to keep in mind is that only 4 of the 8 plugs are UPS protected. All 8 plugs provide conditioned power.

A nice feature is that one of the outlets is offset from the others. That way you can plug in an AC transformer without it covering half of the neighboring plugs.

This is really the entry level, so don't expect to have long battery back up time. I have a 19inch LCD monitor and a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop plugged into this and it gives only 5 min back up time. Nevertheless, this is really for you to back up your work during a blackout, not meant for you to continue working during the blackout... But with such short battery back up time, I should have bought the one with 3x2 slots at Circuit City for $30 instead; could have saved $9.

(Perhaps I commented too early, I just clicker the software recently and it indicated that I have 30 minutes standby time... which far longer than what I previously said... Hence my giving it a four stars rating instead of three... - Jan 2008)