CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD Intelligent LCD UPS 1500VA 900W AVR Mini-Tower
- 1500VA/900 Watts UPS system – Protects PCs, workstations, and home entertainment systems. Prevents data loss and protects electronic equipment from harmful power problems.
- Line interactive – Corrects brownouts and overvoltage without using battery power. GreenPower UPS, reduces energy consumption up to 75%.
- Multifunction LCD provides runtime in minutes, battery status, load level and other status information.
- Output Connections: (4) Battery Backup & Surge Protected Outlets, (4) Surge Protected Outlets – Energy Star qualified – Mini-Tower Form Factor – 3 Year Warranty
- NEXT GENERATION MODEL BRG1500AVRLCD (ASIN B00NWRO7O8 Premium LCD, 2.1A USB Chargers)
Cyberpower CP Office Tower 1500AVRLCD1500VA UPS CP1500AVRLCD Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS)
List Price: $ 179.95
Price: [wpramaprice asin=”B000FBK3QK”]
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A worthwhile alternative to APC to consider:,
For the past three years, I stuck to APC’s consumer products and have been very disappointed. They have more problems than the older units I’ve grown to love, and because they change models so often, it’s harder to find a battery replacement. Plus, they just have a sort of cheapness about them.
With my latest computer purchase, a dual quad Mac Pro, my older 800VA APC just couldn’t handle it. So, I decided to try this Cyberpower 1500 and have been very pleased with it, using it for about 2 months so far. The signaling and reported time is more reliable than the APC I was using. Although it should be said, any consumer UPS will not guarantee exact runtimes, load measurements, etc. – For what you are paying for this amount of capacity, some sacrifice must be realized. If you do your calculations correctly, and use it as needed (surges, brown-outs and limited black-outs), these units will fulfill your needs. If you need super accurate measurements and reliable AC power generation, then you should consider a high end unit, such as what APC offers for data centers.
The load reading for this unit, when measured with a Kill-A-Watt is pretty accurate. I like the soft blue lighting with auto-off. I connect my two, 24″ LCDs to the APC 800VA unit, and the Cyberpower handles the Mac Pro with three, external FireWire drives with no problems. Testing it, by turning off the circuit breaker (shouldn’t pull the cord from the wall), reports about 20 minutes of runtime, which seems about right. I’ve left it on battery power for about 10 minutes, and the readings remained fairly constant. I live out in the country at the end of our power grid, so I get a lot of “dirty” power. Brown-outs are common, and my larger UPS units have the ability to generate statistical logs each day of the power fluctuation. I feel pretty safe with this unit, and wouldn’t hesitate to purchase another one.
Lastly, the software both Cyberpower and APC provides for the Mac OS, is really bad! I prefer to just use the Mac’s SysPrefs to configure the UPS settings and leave it at that. Both companies desperately need a re-write of their OS X software.
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|Functional and stylish, very nice bells & whistles,
The CyberPower features a three-inch front-panel readout, backlit in (what else?) blue, that, with each consecutive push of the oversized display button, tells you in big digits what the current load is, the voltage it receives from the wall outlet, the estimated run time, the total load capacity, the battery capacity, even how many minutes remain after a blackout occurs and the battery is running down. The display turns itself off after 20 or 30 seconds, so it’s not too distracting (actually, the user should have the option of keeping the display on, but I suppose you can’t have everything).
When a blackout strikes, the CyberPower unit intermittently beeps to signal that the battery has kicked in — but unlike other UPS’s I’ve used, you can switch off the annoying beep in acknowledgment.
I deduct points for the nine outlets being so closely spaced together that any device powered by a wallwart will take up two or even three spaces.
Cyberpower also shortchanges Mac users by not giving them full-featured power management software. You can control the behavior of the battery backup through the Energy Saver control panel in OSX, which recognizes the brand and model of the UPS and lets you decide how you want to safely power down the computer and the other plugged-in devices in case of a blackout. So far so good. But the native Mac software won’t let you instruct other applications to autosave and quit. That means unsaved documents will prevent applications from shutting down unless you’re there to manage the process; and when the Cyberpower’s battery depletes itself, the result will be the same as if you had no UPS to begin with — the computer eventually shuts off as if you’d literally pulled the plug, and unsaved changes will be lost.
Still, that’s not a dealbreaker for me; long ago I’ve gotten into the habit of hitting command-S every couple of minutes when I’m working on a document.
FWIW, the estimated battery run time of my configuration — a 24-inch iMac with a 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo chip, plus three external drives — is about 16 minutes.
Oh yeah: the unit has a swappable battery and three-year warranty. Not too shabby.
UPDATED, August 2012: It’s still going strong. I just bought this product again, a second one, to plug in an extra computer and additional hard drives. Hope to have them for many more years — ready to save my computer equipment from surges, blackouts, and brownouts at a fraction of a moment’s notice.
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