APC Essential PM5U-UK Surge Arrest with 5 Outlets and 2 USB Charging Ports

After using APC UPS units, i thought i would try their Surge Protector products too. I have always used Belkin surge protectors, almost religiously. After seeing this surge protector advertised i cancelled my order for a Belkin unit and bought this instead. I am glad I did. The newer Belkin units have lost their magic, they no longer have rotating plugs for compatibility with bulky power supplies. So, onto this APC unit PM8-UK, it's a surge protector extension strip. It has a built in switch, an overload indicator LED, a Surge Protection LED and an Earth connected LED. Assuming it is the same as other APC units the Overload LED should be RED and should not be illuminated in normal use. The other two should be always illuminated green. If they are not then there is a fault that should be checked. It has 4 screw slots on the back to allow mounting in various orientations. I really like the design with 4 sockets on the front face and another 4 on the side at a slight angle. This means there is plenty of room when mounted, or on the floor/desk, for normal BS plugs on the side sockets and various bulky power supplies on the front sockets. It has a cable routing on the back side that allows for the supply cable to be neatly routed either side of the unit. The supply cable is 1.25mm^2 which is adequate and is the same as Belkin units. The plug is a high quality rewirable type with an ASTA marking and a moulded strain relief that looks identical to the Belkin Essentials series. As for the surge protection, this product is amazing. Assuming the protection ratings are comparable between manufacturers you are looking at 2754 Joules of protection for this APC unit. For comparison the Belkin Premium BSV804af2M 8 socket is only 900 Joules. The Belkin Essentials F9E600uk1M 6 Socket is only 476 Joules. The Masterplug range of basic surge protectors are only 370 Joules. It is worth noting the connected equipment warranty is full of terms, conditions, and requirements and must be registered as soon as you purchase the product to be valid. But this is par for the course for any of these surge protectors and you would always struggle making a successful claim. This product appears to be very high quality and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a premium surge protector. Always check your surge protector LEDs regularly, whether APC or any other brand, MOV based surge protectors do eventually die and lose their protection.

This APC surge arrest has plenty of ports and in a compact format which is ideal to sit on top of my desk and fixed with adhesive putty. It's markedly well made and the two USB ports are great for the occasional charging or to connect my desk fan during summer.

Firstly, I won’t take risk for my family and I have to get very high quality brand power extensions, as so many accidents over the world were related to bad quality and misuse of power extensions. This is not related to how many people used it and reviewed it. It’s all about it’s build quality, usability and durability, all contributing to its stability and hence safety. Therefore there are already not many brands I can trust in this aspect. Secondly even APC is now owned by Schneider, not all Schneider sub-brand extensions are good, and some with significant usability issues for me. However APC is just exceptionally wonderful quality. The body is sturdy, cable can run out on either side, plugging is smooth and feeling quite sleek! It’s like the different feeling of plugging a cheap or original Apple cable into a Mac or iPad, with that satisfying confirming yet smooth and crisp click. The switch is also very sleek and certainly bouncy sturdy. However I hope APC can release models with longer cables and make the body a bit thinner. Before that exist, this one is still the only one I’ll keep sticking and buying, also to replace the others in my home and workplaces.

I've only just received this and plugged it in, so this isn't a long term review by any stretch. I really like the form factor of this and it seems good quality. It's a lot shorter than the usual six plug extensions. I've also heard of APC as they make uninterruptable power supplies and surge protectors for IT server rooms so they have a good reputation even if they are a bit unknown in the consumer market (in the UK at least). This comes with a 3 year guarantee (it says 20 years on the box but I think that may only apply to Germany - I'm not sure) it also comes with £75,000 connected equipment insurance so you should be well covered. It has a surge protection rating of 1836 joules which is far more than the Belkin I was looking at (575) and the Belkin was very long. Finally if the surge protection limit is reached the unit will no longer function which is what you want rather than it continuing to function without the protection as some cheaper units will. The USB ports will be very handy and are a great idea. The only downsides I can see are that the lights are quite bright and there's no way to turn them off. The earth warning LED displays green if everything is OK, which seems unnecessary, couldn't it be red for a fault and off otherwise. Also there aren't individual switches for each plug socket which may bother you - especially from a safety (kids/pets) point of view. That said, it does have safety shutters so the socket isn't totally exposed. The plugs could be a bit further apart to accommodate bulky adapters but they're not too bad and certainly no worse than most. Lastly it's quite costly. On the whole I really like it and would recommend if you can live with the few caveats. Update: I have two of these (and a couple of 8 socket) both about two years old now. The USB charger failed on one of these, apparently there was a pop and a flash as if something had blown when my wife turned it on from the main socket. Despite it being 2 years old, I contacted APC and they sent me a new one at no cost and am currently awaiting the collection of the old one. The caveat at here is that the lifetime guarantee is for EU countries, so I'm not sure whether you will be covered if you buy one now or after Dec 2020.

Appears to be of a good build quality item with a company that have a good reputation

When researching surge protectors, one thing I found out is the Joules rating seems to be an important factor to consider, the higher the rating the better. This rating tells you how much energy the surge protector can absorb before it fails. After looking at numerous ones on Amazon the bulk of them seem to be very low, i.e. 300 - 500 Joules, this beast however has 2754. The protector itself seems very well made, it's very solid, and the extension cable is very thick and chunky. I consider this a very good price for a very good product, I have since purchased a few more of them. This one is also very good if you have large transformer plugs, I was only able to use half the sockets on my previous plug as the transformers were large enough they blocked other sockets from being used, this is very well laid out I can use all available sockets. It was nice to find a branded surge protector, as Amazon seems to be full of cheap and nasty surge protectors, where multiple sellers seems to purchase the same one and just re-brand it, I'm not convinced the quality of parts inside these cheap ones will be up to the job. If you tot up how much equipment is connected it is not worth scrimping on the extension lead. I've had these cheap ones before and the difference in quality and feel between them and this is night and day.

I know the brand very well, I've been using UPS from APC for ages, and the one i've bought 10 years ago still works perfectly. So I do hope that the new one will be as reliable as usual. Looks good, sturdy and well made.

We had a mains surge/spike problem that occurred up to four times an hour that temporarily blanked out the tv screen for just a few seconds, but just long enough to ruin the watching of a tv programme or film, amazingly it seemed to co-incidentally occur just as the storyline reached a climax, it became a joke. We had various electricians check it out, but they concluded that the problem was either power supply switching by the company, a neighbouring property switching on and off domestic devices or even light switches or our own central heating system, so in the end I did the usual research and found that APC produced a good range of mains suppression, filtering or conditioning products of which the APC Surge Arrest Essential -PM1W-UK is their most basic entry level model, however I plugged it in, restarted the tv and it has worked perfectly for almost a week. No interruptions, no apparent spiking and I might add the tv picture and sound seems slightly improved, although that last part might just be wishful thinking, anyway I'd happily recommend this product as a perfect solution to the problems detailed above and well worth trying.