Belkin F6C550-AVR 550VA Battery Backup with Surge Protection
by Belkin Inc.
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Digital product summary information
Manufacturer: Belkin Inc.Audio: English (Original Language)
Model: F6C550-AVR
Color: BLACK GRAY
Product features:
- Provides both surge protection and battery backup
- USB port for Plug and Play installation
- 330-watt/890 joules capacity
- Batteries provide 28 minutes of backup power
- This item is not for sale in Catalina Island
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Digital camera reviews of Belkin F6C550-AVR 550VA Battery Backup with Surge Protection
Digital camera Review: A tale of two UPS's
Summary: 2 Stars
I just returned my Belkin F6C550-AVR. I liked the form factor (tall with plugs on top) and the price/feature tradeoff looked great. I bought it and followed all the directions to a tee. But there was more to the story:
1) Smell - the chemical smell this thing gives off when charging is noxious. It gave me a headache. I'm not exaggerating.
2) Wasteful - Even when nothing is plugged into it and it's fully charged, it draws 18 watts, as measured by my Kill-A-Watt. That's like leaving a CFL lightbulb on 24/7.
3) Software - The software installs under the name "Automatic Power Management Software". The Belkin website calls it "Bulldog v2" I call it "Bulls#!t". It was apparently written in China by people who know nothing of common UI idioms. It eats up too much space on disk. It is buggy. For example, the "load" was shown as 22%, which made me think it was sized with plenty of headroom. Then I unplugged it to test it, and the load reading jumped up to 43%. Oops. Furthermore, it does not tell you the really useful info: how many minutes remain, what's the current charge level of the battery, What's the current input voltage, etc. What's worse is that it has an administrator password, which gives you access to change things, but the login didn't work! It would accept my blank password (as per the manual) but then would immediate revert back to "read only" mode. So many of the features were not accessible. And did I mention the UI sucked?
So what did I do? Like a good engineer, I researched the alternatives and bought the CyberPower CP850AVRLCD. A little more expensive but *much* more usable, and higher capacity too. It only draws 7 watts when turned off, it doesn't stink up the room, it has a beautiful LCD screen which gives you status, and the software actually works. Plus it gives you status on the useful info, so you actually will know the thing is wearing out before you have your next outage.
To be fair, some people might like the Belkin unit. The mechanical design isn't bad and the price is right. And the software, while half-baked, attempts to include enterprise functions which would be great if you could get them to work. In short, if you plan to use it in the garage or server closet where the smell doesn't matter, you don't mind fighting with the software, you don't care to know the status of the unit, and you're OK with wasting 18 watts constantly, then this could work. Otherwise, I'd look at CyberPower, APC, and Tripp-Lite. Good luck.
Summary of Belkin F6C550-AVR 550VA Battery Backup with Surge Protection
The 550VA Office Series UPS offers protection for your computer against blackouts and brownouts. It features 4 battery backup outlets with surge protection and 2 surge only outlets. The 550VA Office Series UPS supports USB connectivity. With a capacity of 330 watts this unit is geared towards entrylevel computers and home electronics. The Home Series also features easy to replace batteries for extended product life. Primary InformationPower Device Type : UPS Power Device / Form Factor : External PowerPower Provided : 550 VA Surge Suppression : Standard BatteryBattery Type : UPS battery ConnectionInterfaces & Connections : 1 x USB Input Connector(s) : 1 x power Output Connector(s) : 6 x power Service&SupportService & Support Type : 3 years warranty UNSPSC CodeUNSPSC Code : 39121011Electronics Features
Cameras and Photo
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