Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Generally, the umpire gives the batter 3 strikes and you're out, no? Right u are!
And that's the story with this DumbOffice 550. I've gone through 3 of these clunkers, and every one of them is defective in one way or another.
I will say quickly, and without further delay, that Tripp Lite honored the warranty policy on one of these that qualified. Fortunately, that particular unit completely died. The inverter totally failed, or I suspect it was the inverter. But before discovering I had a major failure, I went and spent the money for a new battery, thinking, "Gee, this thing can't have failed, could it???" The new battery did nothing to the good. New battery, old battery, same result. Unplug the unit from the AC service, and even with NO LOAD, the red LED on the front panel, indicting OVERLOAD would come on, along with the buzzer, and after 4, 5 or 7 seconds, it shuts down. Repeat the process as many times as you like, same result.
But perhaps the most troubling aspect of this situation was Tripp Lite's complete lack of interest for examining this unit to determine why it failed. I offered to return the failed unit to Tripp Lite, AT MY EXPENSE, and they said they did NOT want it returned. This would have been an easy packing job, since I had the replacement unit's packing materials. The failed unit is the exact same model, meaning, the failed unit will fit in the replacement unit's packing box perfectly. No hassle. Just pay the UPS man and be done with it. Tripp Lite DIDN'T WANT IT..
What are these people thinking?
Ok, that's enough on this one. No one likes long reviews.
The warranty replacement unit, referenced above, hums and buzzes, and switches over to the battery frequently. And it doesn't matter which way you twist the SENSITIVITY ADJUST control on the back. And like the other one I mention shortly, it runs quite hot, even when not doing anything, just being plugged in but not delivering any load, and nothing connected to it being turned on. Slap the cabinet one way, then another, bang the top, and sometimes one can get the humming to quiet down. But I'm not going to scream too loudly as #2 still works, with the above shortcomings. I have it connected to an eMachines W3644, which is a penny-pincher computer that has only a Sepmron LE-1200 CPU and only one plug-in card, a modem, so it doesn't represent much of a load. With just this eMachines and a small 19" Asus LCD monitor, when I pull the plug for approaching storms, the battery holds up for only 5-7 minutes-- sometimes perhaps a tad more. That's not much of a load, and not much duration time. But it's better than nothing I suppose.
And the 3rd one, it's behavior is just like the description above, with the same annoying "switch to battery" occurring often. In fact, they are such a pain I have to just turn them off when going to bed so the buzzer doesn't come on and wake me up, which both have done often. This 3rd unit I use as a backup for the TV, VCR and DVD burner. Very same SmartOffice 550, and as with the others, should be called the DumbOffice 550. Or maybe the BuzzBox 550, er, HumBox 550?
Every one of these has a bug-a-boo about it. But I know Tripp Lite can do better because I have yet one more Tripp Lite toy here, a UPS device made back in 2000, which goes by the trade name of "Internet Office 500". That's right, it's now 2010, and this Internet Office 500, long discontinued I suppose, is still rendering outstanding service, TEN YEARS after purchase. I've only had to change the battery. None of the aforementioned headaches discussed above apply to this Internet Office 500.
So what has Tripp Lite done between the Internet Office 500 and this SmartOffice 550? Some corner-cutting, cheap and dirty mistakes, and they should be ashamed. Dear Customer, er, potential customer, look for something better, this is a troublesome unit.
3 out of 3 and all troublesome, is unacceptable. One of these was purchased here thru Amazon, the other via [...]. Doesn't seem to matter where you buy it, it's trouble.
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550VA 300W - 5 Minute(s) Full-load - 6 x NEMA 5-15R
