Customer Ratings & Reviews

I purchased two of these since they were on sale and I really needed to replace one UPS for my living room DVR and need one for my Bed room DVR. These are 550VA physically small UPS and are backed by a highly reputable company. These are great for DVRs, HTPC, or just your home PC. It has surge suppression and will supply pleanty of power to cover most small electrical outages. There are two electrical strips, one for uninterrupted power and one for surge suppression only. One thing to note, absolutely no UPS battery will last forever. There is generally a 3 to 4 year life on an UPS battery (doesn't matter which brand) and so long as your electrical power didn't have too many power surges (spikes), all you need to do is replace the battery and you're good for another 3-4 years. Specific to these two units I purchased, I noticed that the outlets on both of these devices had extremely tight connections making it difficult to plug some of my devices in. I guess you could spin this as a possitive that the plugs will never come loose. Other APC units like this never had that issue in the past for me. I use these for my DirecTv DVRs because they take about 5 minutes or more to recover from a power glitch, and if the DVR is the only item on the UPS, it can last for 40+ minutes. I highly recommend APC to anyone but ensure you are buying enough power for your application, like my DVRs don't need much power but if you're looking to cover a rear screen projector (or similar) where cycling power kills the lamps, you need something larger like the RS1500 for example to be able to give you time to shut it down and cool the bulb properly. Sorry, off topic just a bit.

I've only had this unit for about 5 weeks, but I gave it five stars for what it's done for me so far. Easy to install, works without calling attention to itself. Four times since I've installed this back up, it notified me, when I woke my computer up , that their was an incident of electrical noise, and the back up intervened and supplied power for a short duration, about 5 minutes each time. What happened to cause electrical noise I don't know, but what I have noticed is that I have not had a need to reset my modem since I bought this unit. I used to have to do a reset once a week, because web browsing would slow down. It would appear to me, the cleaner signal is not only helping my computer but my modem also. I have dsl, the phone line is not going though the backup, just straight to my computer, the modem is plugged into the back up.

I bought this to replace an 8 year old Back UPS Office that never gave me any problems. This unit has 8 outlets, 4 of which are backed up. My old unit only had 6 and 3. The other advantage of this unit is the foot print is much smaller and better fits under my desk. I would have stayed with my old unit, but the battery replacement cost was more than this new unit. So dollar savings, more outlets and smaller footprint made this purchase a no-brainer. I did contact APC support to let them know I am a little disappointed in the replacement battery cost. If it makes more financial sense to buy new, their replaceable battery capability is not a real benefit over their competition.

We have used different UPS products at our office. APC have good quality, price and functionality. Suggest buying online for in-store pickup. There have been several times that the units do not have an in-store display, the sales person says they do not have any, but go online and they are available to purchase and pickup in less than 30 minutes at the same store.

First off, this won't be very useful if you're planning to use it for a TV or larger monitor along with a PC. This size UPS is best for small equipment that you need clean, conditioned, reliable power at all times. I bought this one recently for my 1TB NAS + wireless router, and that's it. This really is cheap insurance as compared to data loss that could happen with a brown out or worse. Again, I can't stress enough that if you're looking for a UPS for your tower PC & monitor along with a printer/scanner or HDTV & gaming console, have a look at a 900VA at the least.

I bought 3 of these because the power will flash for just a moment relatively frequently in my area. It's usually only off for a split second but it's enough to cause my DVR to go through its 10 minute boot up cycle. So I have 1 powering my 55 inch LED and the DVR, 1 powers my cordless phone base (I provide ON Call support and can't have a call cut off suddenly), and 1 powers my cable modem and wifi router. So far the longest the power has gone out since putting these in place is just a few seconds but everything kept right on working as if nothing happened. I was shocked that it was able to handle the large TV so easily, but it was great! What's really nice about the APC back-ups is that you can connect them to a computer via USB, install the software and disable the annoying beeps that by default alert you to a power failure. Since I didn't want to be woken up at night for a power flash, this was essential. And thanks to Best Buy's price matching policy, when it went on sale somewhere else I was still able to buy it at Best Buy.

APC products have been part of my worklife for decades now. When my old ApcBackups at home died, I knew what I was looking for. My area has lots of thunderstorms 3 seasons a year, and having a battery backup will alleve the effects of short outages, such as multiple restarts as the power goes on, and off and on and off... you catch my drift. That is certainly a reason to go UPS rather than a simple surge protector. Those short cycles can wreak havic on the pc, and waiting for the Dsl modem to sych back after a short blip seems like eternity. For not a whole lot more than the cost of a decent surge protector, I get battery backup as well... a no-brainer for me.

For the price, this is an excellent buy. Enough plug-ins for what I needed for my pc, etc.

One of my older UPS devices finally gave out, so I purchased this unit to replace it. As expected, it has performed as intended. Setup was minor (connecting the internal battery to the lead). After that, plug the unit into the wall socket and away you go. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a home UPS unit.

The APC Backup ES 550 is a perfect selection when you have power interruptions for short periods (waiting time before your backup generator kicks in) that may affect your computer, modem and router. I have ours connected to our desktop computer, monitor, modem, wireless router, backup hard drive and printer. In a power outage our standby generator needs about a minute or so to cut in and there is ample power left on the ES 550 if it took 5 times longer or more. We were concerned about any damage from power spikes and brown outs which the ES 550 also protects against, so all of our concerns were addressed nicely with this compact and "ready to go out of the box" backup power and surge protecting unit. The unit was under $50 making the cost versus benefit of purchasing it a "No Brainer".

Nice product for the money! Bought this to provide protection to our camera survalence system, router, switch, phome systems.

I strongly recommend this backup. 90 percent of the time when my power is interrupted it's for a very short time. If you do online banking, online classes or just want to protect your computer from shutting off in the middle of a windows update, which is a very bad thing, I would buy this. I have decided to buy a larger back up because I use a lot of extras on my computer such as scanners, surround speakers, routers and external hard drives. So I need more battery life to support my tasks in process in case of long term power failures. hope this helps, Merle

Look, this is a simple UPS. It is more than adequate to run the normal home PC with monitor. It is not intended to run a printer and home PC. And it is only intended to run your system for a few minutes to allow you to shut the system down. It does provide clean consistant power to your devices. I use this model all through my house. One runs my cordless phone and VOIP adapter (will run them for almost 1hr), 1 each for my PCs (3 total with an avg run time of 10 minutes ea.). And finally one runs my cable modem, router/firewall, and my WAP. I don't get concerned if it starts to storm at my house. APC 550VA is the bread and butter UPS. Don't waste your time and money on other brands. The only thing that is better than the APC 550VA is the next model up! LOL Now whether or not you need that capacity is up to you. Oh and the APC 550VA integrates with windows Vista and XP SP3 with no additional software. Just plug the RJ45/USB cable in and you're ready to go! It can't get any more simple.

My original Battery B-UPS battery finally failed after extended years of use. They don't last for ever. I was going to buy another battery when I saw the ad for this upgrade. The price was less than replacing the battery. The shipping was only a buck$. Cheaper than going to the store so I had it delivered. Works as all the APC products I have purchased in the past. Good company and product, great retailer and price. Thank you

Have used APC products for years. I am very pleased with quality, price and functionality. I do not hesitate to recommend this well designed product. For best possible pricing check BEST Buy internet pricing and have free shipment to store.

I have been using APC Battery Back-Up units for years. They have Always worked, and never let me don. I have several PCs on them and live in a Rural are with pretty many "Brown outs" and outages. I have yet to have a Computer failure. Thse units aslo protect your internet connection, whether it be dial up or Broadband. Get You One! It's The Best Protection for your Computer that money can buy!

I got this as protection for my newly built pc. Opened the box and everything was neatly packed and had no fuss setting it up. Worked out of the box and performs its simple job very well. If you want to monitor stats and administer the product, it comes with a software you can install.

My first APC UPC lasted 7 or 8 years? So based on past experience, getting another APC was a no-brainer...especially after checking out other UPC's and their reviews online. You may pay $10 or $15 more for this APC unit over a cheaper model, but I believe you'll be sacrificing peace of mind and propection on your equipment.

I got this hooked up for my desktop and monitor on a power saving mode and the other day when the power went out for a couple of minutes it gave me an extra 15 minutes to shut all my stuff down. I would not recomend to use for full time back up but it works good for giving you enough time to shut everything down safely.

I bought this as a replacement for another of the same model that was roughly 5 years old, they last about 5 years and have no problems, but then the battery starts to go. I've also tried some of the off brands like cyber power and they last no where near as long as the APC ones.