Surge protectors

[Max]

My neck of the woods is prone to occasional winter/summer power outages. I assume that any outage causes a voltage spike. Does a basic power strip/surge protector, say an Ace Hardware $12 gadget, offer enough protection? If not, what's recommended?

[edog1977]

Personally, I wouldn't trust a $12 power strip to protect my computer. I would suggest a buying a UPS.

[The Fugitive]

You get what you pay for. Cheap is cheap. Power outages are not always tied in with a surge. Iwould get a middle of the road strip. Mine cost about $80 and has coverage up to $5000 if anything plugged into it is damaged.

[CRYPTIC]

Surge protectors are only good for a few hits the cheaper ones might only take one hit and then gives you no protection. The more expensive ones will take more hits. Like edog said a UPS would be a better way to go or like fugitive said get one that offers  coverage for whats plugged into it.

[jigsaw]

We get rolling blackouts in the summer, so I have all mine on UPS. Gives the benefits of surge protection, plus gives me time to save images/video that I may be working on and get everything shut down safely.

[Masherbrum]

Tripp-Lite is a great brand.

[Dichotomy]

any recommendations on a decent ups?

[jigsaw]

any recommendations on a decent ups?

I have a mix of APC and Belkin. For home use they're about the same. Grab whichever happens to be on sale. You really wont see a major difference in a UPS until you get up into the industrial sized units.

[edog1977]

any recommendations on a decent ups?

I would suggest buying a UPS with a larger capacity then you need.  If you're running close to the rated capacity of the UPS, and you upgrade your computer, you may end up overloading the UPS.

[katanaso]

Also, if/when you get a UPS, don't plug your laser printer into it, if you have one.