Belkin F6C550-AVR 550VA Battery Backup with Surge Protection
by Belkin Inc.
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Belkin F6C550-AVR 550VA Battery Backup with Surge Protection
Customer Review: Time Will Tell
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a throw away item - replacement batteries generally cost 70-80% of a new discounted unit; better to buy new.
Time will tell if Belkin makes a better UPS than APC does.
It all depends on the battery.
Customer 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.
Customer Review: No more Belkin for me...
Summary: 2 Stars
This is the second BELKIN UPS system that I have owned in about the last 15 years. It is, unfortunately, also the second BELKIN UPS that has failed when I needed it the most.
After approximately 2 years the system suddenly no longer holds a charge. It really was like one day it works, the next day it doesn't. Exact same problem I had with the first BELKIN. There was no indication on the unit itself that the battery was discharging and would no longer provide battery backup. There was no indication in the software that any sort of fault had occurred. There were no red lights, no warning sounds, nothing.
The power company just came out and installed new smart meters which meant taking the power down for literally 5 seconds (I know because I counted). I was thinking - no problem, I can continue working and there won't be an issue because hey I've got this massive UPS. Nope - power went off and so did the UPS. Not even an attempt to keep the power on.
When the power was restored and I turned the device back on - still no error lights, no message in the software, nothing. The only thing that had changed is that Windows 7 now reports the UPS at 2% power in a "charging status". It has stayed at 2% charging for more than 4 hours. Battery is done, kaputt, busted, over.
So I am pleased to say that I am switching over to a Tripp-Lite system which has never let me down on three other computer/network systems. Bye-bye Belkin.
Your results may vary - but after two Belkin failures I'm no longer willing to give them a chance.
Customer Review: Smells (Updated)
Summary: 2 Stars
This Belkin unit smells. Received it, plugged it in to charge the batteries and within a few minutes it started to smell of that typical 'electrical smell.' It has now been two days and it still smells but perhaps it is decreasing or my sensitivity to the smell is decreasing. I'm keeping the windows open and hoping it is a just breaking itself in.
[UPDATED] The smell disappeared after about a week. The unit does work flawlessly. While I was using the hammer drill in the front yard the unit kicked in to keep the plasma TV working (until I could tell the kids to shut it down - no use pressing my luck...)
Customer Review: Belkin F6C550-AVR - A real disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
This is my third Belkin UPS, and my last. They have changed the software to something that runs in a DOS like screen that for some reason makes the processor on the computer run all the time. It has slowed my PC down, significantly extended computer start up times and no longer has the easy to read dials in the old Bull Dog software. Now all the info is in a spreadsheet. Tech support says this software is now used on all Belkin UPS products.