TP-Link AV600 Powerline Ethernet Adapter(TL-PA4010 KIT)

Pros: Very nicely packaged and presented as is every TP Link product I’ve ever owned or reviewed. Easily installed and setup. Simply hook one AV500 powernet adapter up to your router, place the other adapter in another outlet close to the one connected to the router, watch the activity LED’s on the adapters (there are three on each one), and when the Powerline LED and the Ethernet LED are blinking on both units, they are talking to each other and sending data. The second adapter can then be moved to where you need it most. Installation of the Powerline Utility is not necessary for them to work, but I recommend that it be installed as it allows you to set the QOS of the second adaptor, or rename the second adapter and reset it’s password, as well as monitor the connection speed between the two units. Sometimes just moving the second unit to a plug a few feet away can make a difference of 50-100 Mbps. The AV500’s are small enough to be used in either upper or lower wall outlet without interfering with the other outlet. The Pairing button allows you to secure the network between the two adaptors. The kit includes two AV500 powerline adapters, resource CD with utility, Quick Install guide, and two ethernet cables. I’m glad to say that the speed of the TL-PA4010 units is the best of any powerline adapter kit I’ve ever had. Though you will never see a true 500Mbps connection speed between the two units, in my tests in my house, I’ve run anywhere between 320Mbps to 110 Mbps, totally blowing away the previous two sets of units that I have. Naturally the closer the second adaptor is to the router attached unit, the stronger the signal should be, but a lot will depend on the wiring in your house and the types of breakers. Also, the AV500 powerline adapters have one feature that none of my previous sets had, and that is a sleep mode. When the unit attached to the second adapter is shut off, the AV500 slowly powers down so current draw is a bare minimum. Once the device is powered back on, the AV500 adaptor springs to life and re-establishes the connection and you are good to go. The adapter attached to the router goes into sleep mode when the secondary adapter does. Very Nice indeed. Cons: Compared to the other powerline adapter sets that I have used, I really can’t find a con with the TP Link AV500 set. The LED brightness doesn’t bother me, as they are normally hidden behind electronic equipment anyway, and the LED’s are easy to see so I know it’s working correctly. Overall Review: I am thoroughly impressed with TP Link, and this AV500 Powerline adapter set. Not only does it work, it works as advertised. Setup is a breeeze, the connection speed is excellent, the power saving mode is great, and the price point it sells at is very, very hard to beat. I tried the AV500’s in several rooms in my house, testing speeds connected to different devices just to see what they would do. My normal wireless download speed throughout my home is 25.5Mb/s download and 4.5 Mb/s upload through a broadband cable router. I usually get the same wireless rate as I do with a cable connection, my router is that strong. Using the AV500’s, the download and upload speeds in every outlet I tried matched the wireless download speeds, and direct cable to router hookup speeds. Nice indeed. Where the AV500 finally was attached, and where it will stay is connected to my daughters Samsung BD player in her theater system in the living room. This particular player has never played nice with it’s wireless dongle, and the previous powerline adapter had issues with streaming Netflix. After hooking up the TP Link AV500 to the outlet behind her theater system, I did a download test with my laptop, and it showed the maxed out download speed of 25.5 MB/s. The prevous powerline adapter could only manage about 7 MB/s. The wireless connection to that Samsung BD player wasn’t that much better. Connection between the two AV500 units shows to be about 200 Mbps, or nearly four times as much as the previous set of adaptors. Very Cool. And my daughter is happy. I will gladly recommend the TP Link AV 500 Nano Powerline Adapter kit to anyone needing such a device. It’s a great little product that works.

Pros: I have always been incredibly curious about these devices. A magical box that could turn your home power circuits into a network connection! I was delighted to find out that the experience was exactly as I had hoped! Installation was a breeze. I plugged the two boxes into outlets on the same wall but different floors. My router is upstairs and so I used that outlet and one in the living room. I then plugged in the 2 included ethernet cables. One into my router, the other into my blu-ray player that did not have built-in-wifi. Just like magic, I was now able to update to the latest firmware and take advantage of the built-in entertainment apps! The boxes lit up to indicate that a connection was made and data was being transferred. Netflix and Hulu streamed in HD without any problems at all. Cons: None that I can think of. Wish I had bought them sooner! Overall Review: One thing to note, is that these boxes go into “standby” when not in use. The blue indicator lights will go off and it will take about 20-30 seconds to re-activate after turning the blu-ray player back on. Another thing, which is not a con, just simply a limitation of the device/your home. It will only work on outlets on the same network. The diagram included with the product does a good job of explaining this. Luckily for me, the upstairs and downstairs wall were on the same circuit so I was able to use them!

Pros: I was pleasantly surprised at how small the units were. Performance was good and the connection was stable and smooth. Super quick setup, just plug it in and use it right out of the box. Cables proved were very good quality and were 7ft cables. Packaging was good and secure so no risk of damage during shipping. Price is decent for the quality and performance. Moving around to different plugs around the house the connection speeds stayed the same, impressive to me that distance really didn’t affect it at all. Cons: Poor information and gimmicky advertising. First off these are marketed as extendable, meaning I can add more to the 2 that come with this kit. But from the box, manual, Newegg page or even their website I could not find out how many I could add later. Second they advertised this as “up too 500Mbps” while the units only have a 10/100 Ethernet port. Meaning that at a max each powerline adapter can only “maxed out” provide 100Mbps to the attached device. Overall Review: : Lets get this out of the way now. These are great powerline adapters. They provided me with very steady connections and were super easy to use. They came with everything needed and for a great price. I would recommend these to someone if it matched the needs they had for sure. I have owned other TP-Link devices in the past and really have loved them all. They all performed the tasks they were designed for and I never had one fail. That being said I also like these, but I fell I would have enjoyed them more knowing what to expect ahead of time and not finding out later that they couldn’t even come close to doing what they claim. For a set to claim they will provide up to 500Mbps and only have a 10/100 port really burns me as a consumer. I would buy a product that was 10/100 only if I needed a simple connection, but if I bought this set I would have expected it to have a 10/100/1000 port as that’s the only way to achieve the 500Mbps they claim. Now that the rant is over here is what I found from my testing. First off if you have a powerline set from another company this will not work in unison. Also do not plug them into a surge protector or a power strip. They must be plugged directly into a wall socket. I ran my bandwidth testing with an application called “BTest”. I managed to get a pretty steady 45Mbps connection sending and receiving on these devices. Also I would like to not that it was extremely steady and smooth. I had virtually no drops or sags in the transition or receiving of data. Also that connection held at those speeds as I moved throughout the house. Overall I would recommend these as I really found them to be great little powerline adapters. But I still feel like they are misleading the consumer by claiming these can do something they don’t even have the hardware to support. If you are looking for a connection for a PC to do a little internet surfing and browsing, then pick these up. If you want something a little faster then look elsewhere.

Pros: -Very small footprint. Will not block the second outlet. -Consistent speeds -Reliable connection, even at range -Solid build quality -LEDs for connection information -Two ethernet patch cables are included. Cons: -Rated @ 500Mbps but built in port is 10/100Mbps. Although most networking product ratings are theoretical, this product can not and will never be able to exceed the ethernet port’s 100Mbps limitation. -Like all powerline networking devices power strips are not recommended. Overall Review: I was sent this product for review by NewEgg. At it’s sub $40 price tag I would recommend it in most situations. Powerline networking is simply not made for pure speeds. They are a simple and reliable alternative to WiFi. I have two rooms in the house where my WiFi coverage is spotty at best. This causes relatively low sustained speeds and plenty of temporary disconnects. For average browsing this is not a huge issue but when online gaming even a drop of a couple of seconds can kill your game. In my past experience with older powerline models as well as this one, they create a very stable but not overly fast connection. With this TP-Link the setup could not have been easier. I plugged one unit in downstairs and connected it to a ten port switch which is connected to the router. I pressed the button, went upstairs and plugged the second unit in and hit the button on that one. Almost instantly the unit’s built in display LEDs confirmed a connection. I plugged a laptop into the upstairs device and was online right away. Super easy. No disks or installs required on the laptop. Now for speeds. Remember, the device only has a 100Mbps port which means it is hardware limited to this speed regardless of it’s 500Mbps rating. I was able to pull files from my NAS at a consistent 60-70Mbps (about 8MB/s average). I was also able to max out my 50Mbps cable connection while doing internet speed tests. I was able to stream 1080p Netflix and YouTube videos without any issues as well as streaming 1080p video files from my NAS on the local network. After several weeks of testing I never saw a single disconnect which in my eyes is key for this product. In my eyes, all these powerline networking devices are best used to get a stable solid internet connection for everyday use. The TP-Link model does this perfectly. I would NOT recommend any powerline networking if you are planning to move lots of large files on a regular basis. It is simply too slow. My son is very happy now though because he is no longer experiencing the dropped weak WiFi signals and the unit goes faster than my internet connection so there is no bottleneck for these purposes. Overall, these devices are a godsend for households that have issues with WiFi coverage and require a stable connection for everyday computer use. Just remember the port limitation of 100Mbps so you will never get more than about 12MB/s of actual transfer speeds even in the best of conditions.