APC by Schneider Electric Back-UPS ES - BE400-UK - Uninterruptible Power Supply 400VA (8 Outlets, Surge protected) , Black

An excellent UPS for protecting home or very small business IT systems. A tested and effective design giving good electrical protection to devices running from the battery plus surge protection and limited ability to charge mobile devices. Note that this size battery (850VA) won't keep full PC systems operating for long, but is ideal to allow graceful shutdowns and keeping routers running to maintain internet access via mobile devices (charged ideally by other means) during an extended power cut.The UPS works very well with recent Apple Macs - it is detected directly by MacOS as a UPS and needs no extra software. Easy and effective if you just want a safe and automatic way of powering down your Mac in the case of a power cut.In contrast, the provided Windows PowerChute software looks old-fashioned and is a little fiddly but is very powerful and useful. It gives detailed information on energy usage and UPS performance and therefore indicates how long the unit's battery would be expected to power your IT system for. This lets you decide how to respond to a powercut and manage any business risk.Follow the documentation (download the full manual) and in particular plug the UPS directly into a mains socket rather than through e.g. a smart plug or home-plug adapter.Test that the battery will fully charge before putting a load on it, and make sure you are familiar with the different warning lights and audio beeps.The batteries are easy to replace when they reach the end of their useful life - the unit gives a warning when it considers this the case.In summary, a good small-capacity UPS with quality software. As such, it is different from the many battery-based chargers for mobile devices or a mini 'powerstation' as advertised for camping or solar charging. Not better or worse, they just meet different needs.

I live in a village which regularly suffers from power cuts; power surges and spikes. I have tried using power surge protectors, but these tend to work just once - when you have suffered a power surge the protectors will work but cannot be reset. The most recent power surge knocked out my PC's power supply (which cost me £70 to replace), so I decided to invest in a UPS.I was persuaded to go for the Back-UPS ES550 partly as a result of the previous reviews from Amazon customers (all very positive and helpful). My one reservation was the capacity of this particular model. Would the ES550 be large enough for my system? I needn't have worried. With my PC (a fairly powerful beast with an 850w power supply); my monitor (a 24" Dell) and my modem and router plugged in, the software tells me that I have an incredible 45 minutes of backup power! I have to say that I find this a bit hard to believe, and I haven't tested it by unplugging from the mains, but I am sure that there is enough capacity to allow me safely to finish any work and shut down, in the event of a power cut.The ES550 has eight available sockets. Four of these provide full back up power, the remainder offer protection from power surges and spikes. There is also protection for your Ethernet connection with RJ45 inputs and outputs.The UPS connects to your PC using a supplied (non-standard) USB lead. My PC (running Windows 7) recognised the UPS immediately and automatically installed the appropriate drivers, but there is a supplied DVD with all the necessary software on it. Once the software has been installed, you have the ability to configure the UPS as you wish. As an earlier reviewer noted, you can disable the alarm (which I think is an important feature when using these at home). Even better, you can configure the alarm so that it will only sound when your PC is switched on - and remain silent during specific hours. I have set this to disable the alarm between 10:00pm at night and 8:00am the following day. I really don't want the children waking up in a panic every time we have a brief power cut at night!The software will shut your PC down safely automatically in the event of a power cut. Again, you have options. You can, for example, set the software so that the PC will only shut down when there is a certain amount of backup time remaining (say, 5 minutes). alternatively, you could choose to shut down after, say, 8 minutes after a power cut, if the power is not restored during that time. It really is very flexible.One tip - if you intend to register this product (recommended), may I suggest that you write down the very small numbers on the very small white label on the back of the UPS before setting everything up and plugging in all your equipment. This may save you a little frustration!In summary, this is a great piece of kit. it's relatively inexpensive; it's versatile; it's extremely easy to configure; and it appears to offer more than enough power for a home set-up.

I bought this to replace my old one which had died after 5 years of use. This is definitely a better design over the old model. I like the fact the footprint is slim as it makes it easy to position. The 4 green lights to confirm the battery is fully charged is very helpful rather than having to check on the computer. This way I will no about a possible battery failure quicker. I was surprised to find the battery almost fully charged out of the box. Six days later I got to test it was I had two power cuts. I had only walked out of the room for a few minitues when there was a local power cut. The unit did it's job perfectly and safely closed my computer and hard drive down.

PER ORA MI PARE MOLTO BUONOLA BATTERIA NON DURA TANTISSIMO, MA ALMENO OFFRE IL TEMPO NECESSARIO A SALVARE TRANQUILLAMENTE IL LAVORO, SPEGNERE IL COMPUTER, E CARICARE UN PAIO DI CELLULARI

The product is good but came EU with a plug. They advertise with the UK plug.

UPS Installato da circa sei mesi per alimentare un carico di circa 350W ( computer all-in-one). Nessun problema riscontrato ad oggi, il prodotto funziona bene, è silenzioso e interviene regolarmente sulle anomalie di tensione e/o blackout.Per la durata della batteria è invece un pò presto per giudicare, valuterò più avanti...