Surge Suppressor

If your concern is surges then I'd go with the best protector my budget allows. For the same money you'll get a lot more surge protection than if you go with a battery backup/protector - which out of economic necessity had to compromise and most likely did so on the protector side because this is the 1/1,000,000 event.

On the other hand, if you've got "dirty" power - there are devices that will clean it up. These are usually found in the audio/video section of the store not the computer section. Some of these have surge protectors too.

I personally go for Belkin, they offer lifetime equipment warranty with each product, obviously it varies depending on the model bought, but my current one has unlimited cover, my other one I think has £175,000 cover.
But there are people who say that you should go for UPS, it is definitely advisable if you want controlled shutdowns in the case of power outages, it will give you the time to save everything and shut down properly, it is also not good to shut down a PC via pulling the plug, which is what a power outage basically does, hope that helps a bit.

I personally like Tripplite ups's and Isobar surge surpressors (also by tripplite)
Isobar surge supressors
Tripplite UPS

Just use the selector here and add 30% or so to find an appropriate size unit.... http://www.advizia.com/tripplite/ For example, I'm running the tripplite smart pro 1500LCD with my current system, it will also allow me to upgrade to a new c2d system without having to buy a new ups.

most UPS also perform antisurge specifically for computers.
Here's a helpful guide to surge suppressors.