110 MACWORLD AUGUST 2021
WORKINGMAC REVIEW: AMAZONBASICS 360-WATT STANDBY UPSsags and short
outages, however,
pick a pure sine wave
UPS, often a feature
of line-interactive
UPSes. It’s worth the
often only slightly
higher price with
modern UPSes to
avoid the potential of
power-supply
damage. Line-
interactive units also
switch over to battery
power substantially
faster than most standby units, preventing
the possibility of a computer crashing due
to a short absence of juice.
Check your computer system to find
out if it uses active PFC; it’s sometimes
listed in a technical specifications list by
the manufacturer, but often you have to
dig to find the information. A power
supply that automatically switches among
voltages used by different countries’
power systems without requiring a
switch to be set is almost certainly
using active PFC.
If you wind up using the UPS with a
computer, you can connect it via an
included USB cable and install software
provided by Amazon, or rely on options
built into the operating system. This
includes notifications when power sags,
when the battery kicks in, or when the
battery is running out of juice, as well as
triggering an automatic shutdown.
The software Amazon offers provides
additional statistics and other controls
beyond those built in to macOS and
Windows. While Amazon product
reviewers said the software allows tuning
certain low-level electrical features, that
feature wasn’t present in the latest release.
The software also isn’t mentioned in the
included manual and must be downloaded
from the UPS product page at Amazon,
where the links for macOS and Windows
versions appear in small type.
Amazon often contracts third parties to
make its AmazonBasics-branded goods,
and CyberPower is the creator of this UPS,
which closely resembles some CyberPowerThis UPS won’t restart after it has fully depleted power.