Loiter Point does not run a testing lab. We do not own an oscilloscope, a load bank, or a rack of sacrificial power supplies, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we do is synthesize three things: published manufacturer specifications, independent reviews from outlets that do run hardware through instrumented testing, and verified owner reports from forums and vendor support communities where the same failure patterns show up again and again.
That means every performance number on this page is attributed. When we say the APC BE600M1 delivers 23 minutes at a 100W load, that figure comes from APC's own published listing — it is a vendor claim, and vendor runtime claims are typically generated under ideal lab conditions with a fresh battery. When we point to the CyberPower CP900AVR as the pick for a home network, that reflects Wirecutter's 2024 recommendation, which cited runtime, ease of use, and compact size. When we describe how active-PFC power supplies misbehave on stepped-sine-wave units, that comes from discussion threads on Tom's Hardware, Schneider Electric's own APC community forum, and SilentPCReview — reported failure modes, not something we watched happen.
Where the evidence is thin, we say so. UPS units are a category with surprisingly little rigorous independent testing relative to how many of them get sold, and a lot of what circulates online is affiliate filler with invented numbers. Battery runtime in particular varies enormously with load, battery age, and ambient temperature, so treat any single runtime figure — including the manufacturer's — as a ceiling rather than a promise.
Prices below are approximate street prices, and UPS pricing swings hard with retailer promos and battery commodity costs. The CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD was tracking around $240 on Amazon in early July 2026 per camelcamelcamel; the APC BR1500MS2 has recently ranged roughly $260–$340 depending on retailer, with Staples listing it at $339.99. Check current pricing before you buy. Do not treat these as fixed.
This is the default answer for most people, and it is the answer specifically because of the wattage. 1000W of rated output is the highest in this group, which is what gives you room to put a real desktop plus a monitor on it without living at the edge of the unit's capacity. It outputs pure sine wave, which takes the entire active-PFC compatibility problem off the table (more on that below), and CyberPower ships it with 12 NEMA outlets, automatic voltage regulation, a color LCD status panel, and USB-A plus USB-C charging ports on the chassis. It is UL certified.
All figures above are manufacturer-published specifications, not Loiter Point measurements.
The BR1500MS2 is the unit to buy if you specifically want to be inside APC's ecosystem. Schneider Electric's own product page confirms 1500VA/900W, ten NEMA 5-15R outlets, AVR, pure sine wave output, an LCD panel, USB Type-A and Type-C ports, and — importantly — a user-replaceable battery. That last item matters more than people expect: UPS batteries are consumables, and a unit you can re-cell yourself in five minutes has a much longer useful life than one you throw away.
The honest comparison against the CP1500PFCLCD is not flattering on paper. You get 100W less rated capacity, two fewer outlets, and you typically pay more. What you get back is PowerChute, APC's monitoring and graceful-shutdown software, which is the more mature of the two ecosystems and matters if you are scripting shutdowns for a NAS or a home server. Build reputation is the other argument, though we'd note that reputation is a soft signal, not a measurement — we have no comparative failure-rate data for these two units and neither does anyone else publishing openly.
Specifications confirmed against Schneider Electric's published product page.
Wirecutter named the CP900AVR its best UPS for a home network in 2024, citing runtime, ease of use, and compact size. That is a meaningful endorsement from an outlet that does instrumented testing, and it lines up with the shape of the product: 900VA/560W in a mini-tower chassis with ten outlets, AVR, and UL certification. For a modem, a router, a switch, and a small NAS — loads that are collectively small and constant — it is very well matched.
The caveat you must not skip: the CP900AVR outputs a simulated (stepped) sine wave, not a pure one. That makes it the wrong purchase for a desktop PC with an active-PFC power supply. If a gaming rig or a modern workstation is going on this UPS, buy the CP1500PFCLCD or the BR1500MS2 instead. Networking gear, with its small external power bricks, generally does not care.
Manufacturer-published specifications. Recommendation weight comes from Wirecutter's 2024 pick, not from Loiter Point testing.
The AVRG900LCD is the outlet-count play. 900VA/480W with twelve outlets in a compact chassis, plus AVR, an LCD readout, and UL certification. If your problem is that you have a lot of small things to plug in — a modem, a router, a switch, a hub, a couple of external drives, a desk lamp's worth of miscellany — this gets more of them onto battery and surge protection than anything else at its size.
It is also simulated sine wave, so the same active-PFC warning applies as with the CP900AVR. And note the wattage carefully: 480W rated is lower than the CP900AVR's 560W despite the identical 900VA figure. This is exactly the VA-versus-watts trap. The watt number is the one that constrains you.
Manufacturer-published specifications, not Loiter Point measurements.
This is the "just keep my internet alive" unit, and for that job it is entirely sufficient. 600VA/330W, surge protection, and a USB charging port. APC's own published listing states 23 minutes of runtime at a 100W load — that is APC's figure under their conditions, not ours, and real-world runtime will depend on your actual load and the age of the battery. Still, a modem-plus-router load typically sits well under 100W, which is the case this product is built for.
Do not stretch it. At 330W rated there is no room for a desktop, and the evidence base for this unit is thinner than for the others here — it is a high-volume budget product with far less rigorous independent coverage than the CP900AVR has. Buy it for a narrow job and it does that job.
Runtime figure is APC's published specification. Loiter Point has not verified it independently.
This is the single most common way people buy the wrong UPS, and it is worth understanding before you spend anything.
A simulated (stepped) sine wave UPS does not reproduce the smooth AC waveform from the wall. It approximates it with a stepped square-ish waveform that includes a brief zero-output gap at the phase change. Most simple electronics tolerate this fine. Power supplies with active power factor correction — which is essentially every modern desktop PSU worth owning — often do not, because active-PFC circuitry watches the incoming waveform closely and reacts badly to that discontinuity at the moment of transfer to battery.
Reported failure modes, drawn from discussion on Tom's Hardware forums, Schneider Electric's APC community forum, and SilentPCReview:
These are patterns reported by owners and vendor-forum participants, not behavior Loiter Point has observed. But they recur consistently enough, across independent venues, that we treat them as a real design constraint rather than folklore.
Practical rule: if your power supply is labeled "active PFC", buy a pure sine wave UPS. In this roundup that means the CP1500PFCLCD or the BR1500MS2. The CP900AVR, AVRG900LCD and BE600M1 are stepped-wave units and belong on networking gear, not on a desktop.
Sizing is arithmetic, not intuition. Add up the continuous draw of everything you intend to plug in, then buy a UPS with roughly 20–30% headroom above that total. This is a general rule of thumb rather than a specification — it exists because batteries lose capacity as they age and because you will inevitably plug in one more thing.
As rough anchors: a typical desktop plus one monitor commonly lands somewhere in the 300–400W range, and gaming systems can exceed 600W. Those are general ranges, not measurements of any specific machine — check your own hardware's actual draw if you can. And watch the units: a UPS advertised as "900VA" may be rated at 560W or at 480W, as the CP900AVR and AVRG900LCD demonstrate. The watt rating is the one that constrains you. VA is the number marketing prefers.
Two expectations worth resetting. First, a UPS is for riding out brief outages and giving you time to shut down cleanly — it is not a generator, and it will not run your equipment for hours. Second, UPS batteries are consumables. They typically need replacing every few years, which is why a user-replaceable battery (as on the APC BR1500MS2) is a genuine long-term cost advantage over a sealed unit you have to discard.
| Model | Rated VA / W | Waveform | Outlets | Approx. price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD | 1500VA / 1000W | Pure sine | 12 | ~$240 | Overall; desktop PCs with active PFC |
| APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500MS2 | 1500VA / 900W | Pure sine | 10 | ~$260–$340 | PowerChute users; replaceable battery |
| CyberPower CP900AVR | 900VA / 560W | Simulated | 10 | Check current | Router / modem / NAS; home network |
| CyberPower AVRG900LCD | 900VA / 480W | Simulated | 12 | Check current | Mid-budget; many small devices |
| APC Back-UPS BE600M1 | 600VA / 330W | Not specified by APC in the published listing | Not specified in verified sources | Check current | Budget; keeping internet alive |
All figures are manufacturer-published ratings. Blank cells reflect specifications we could not confirm from a primary source, and we would rather leave them empty than guess.
For most households and small offices, buy the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD. At around $240 it delivers 1000W of rated capacity, pure sine wave output that sidesteps the active-PFC problem entirely, and 12 outlets — the best combination of headroom and flexibility in this group. It is the pick that will not need replacing when you add a second monitor or swap in a bigger GPU.
Choose the APC BR1500MS2 instead if PowerChute matters to you or if the user-replaceable battery is worth the premium over its service life — accepting that you are paying more for 100W less and two fewer outlets. If the load is purely networking gear, the CyberPower CP900AVR has the strongest independent endorsement here and costs a fraction as much. The AVRG900LCD is the answer when you need outlet count more than watts, and the APC BE600M1 is the cheapest defensible purchase in the category for a modem-and-router load.
Whatever you pick: check the waveform against your power supply, size on watts rather than VA, and verify the current price before you commit. Prices in this category move constantly, and the numbers above are snapshots, not guarantees.