Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When I called APC tech support to find out why my new BX1000G would not power my Dell XPS 9000 in a power outage, the customer rep knew exactly what was wrong. My Dell computer (and many others) needed a pure sine wave input and this APC series of UPS produces a "step approximated sine wave". She even emailed me a company white paper that explained why it was not compatible with many of the newer energy star compliant computers that have "Active Power Factor Correction" power supplies. She recommended that I exchange it for their "smart-ups" model SMT1000 which produces a pure sine wave. This sounded OK until I discovered that the SMT1000 costs almost four times as much as the BX1000G! Google for "apc ups active pfc" to learn much more about this problem. Call APC to find out if your particular PC is compatible before ordering. My solution was to order another brand, CyberPower, pure sine wave unit from Amazon CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD UPS 1500VA 900W PFC Compatible Pure Sine Wave. It provides 50% more power (1500VA) and costs less than ½ what APC charges for their 1000VA pure sine wave unit. CyberPower also sells a 1000VA pure sine wave unit on Amazon that sells for about the same as this BX1000G APC unit.CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD UPS 1000VA 600W PFC Compatible Pure Sine Wave I will update this review after I've had a chance to check out the CyberPower unit. Update, Sep 7, 2011: My CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD arrived today, seven days after I ordered it with Amazon free shipping. It was packed in only the CyberPower box, which is well padded, and came through in good shape. The battery was fully charged when it arrived, so that I was able to check it out with my Dell Studio XPS 9000 immediately. So far it looks like a winner as my computer did not even blink when I pulled the plug on the CyberPower unit. It indicated that it had about one hour of battery run time remaining when I plugged it back in five minutes later. My only gripe is that the power cord is about a foot shorter than the APC unit, but I can live with that a lot better than having my computer crash with every outage as it does with the APC UPS. Also, note that you have to hold the power button in for about three seconds to turn the CyberPower unit on.