TP-LINK TL-PA511KIT High-speed AV 500Mbps Powerline Adapter Starter Kit w/Gigabit Port TP-LINK TL-PA511KIT High-speed AV 500Mbps Powerline Adapter Starter Kit w/Gigabit Port

Pros: As reviewed previously

Cons: This is a bad review for Purolator Couriers. They have to be the worst courier around! Where I live the buzzers do not work so there is a sign at the main entrance that states that for deliveries to enter and knock on apartment door. The driver constantly leave a non-deliverable sticker right next to the sign!! The main door is always unlocked, but the driver never seems to try it or is too lazy to walk in and do his/her job. This may cause me to no longer use Newegg for my comuter supplies.

Other Thoughts: Purolator sucks!

Pros: Inexpensive, no dropouts, easy to install. In an apartment complex with tons of other WiFi units operating, you get a lot of dropout due to interference. This doesn't!

Cons: Design makes adapters stand away from wall and causes them wobbly in the sockets.

Other Thoughts: Should have bought this first as it is so much better than WiFi!

Pros: They are very quick to setup, push one button and go. Works with 2+ devices just as easy.

Cons: Nowheres NEAR the 500Mbps these are advertisted as, the absolute highest I have ever gotten is 8M/s (64Mbps). This is a 2 year old house and from what I have read this is the absolute best case scenario to expect. With all the false advertising that are surrounding products these days this one has to take the cake. There is no way in hell this would ever get near the 500Mbps this is advertisted as, or even 1/5 of that, and that includes every single review I have ever read.

Even though this version has gigabit connections (thus gobbling more power) the fact that this ships with a CAT5 cable is very telling...

Other Thoughts: I have never read a review about anyone testing more then 2 of these and I bought 2 kits to use in 4 rooms of this house. I can say that everything works, no problems talking to each other and (I don't think) there are any speed hits going over two.

I gave this a 3/5 for the fact that it works as advertised but -2 for the horiffic speeds. If I bought a gigabit router and only got 20M/s max it would get the same response.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

We are sorry that you are displeased with the connection performance in the TL-PA511KIT.

We do appreciate your feedback and although these devices typically have higher speeds than you are experiencing, we are noting this feedback and we will make any changes or adjustments we find to be necessary to improve the performance in these devices.

Thanks again!

Best Regards!
marc.elliott@tp-link.com
TP-LINK Support Team
support@tp-link.com
(866) 225-8139
http://www.tp-link.com/us/support
http://www.facebook.com/TPLINK

Pros: Easy to install, just plug it in and go.
Simple instructions.

Cons: Speed is not as fast as I had hoped.

Other Thoughts: I read about this in Max PC and thought I would give it a try to supplement my home network. I have a large home and my wireless router is upstairs in my den. My Blu-ray player was downstairs on the wireless network and the microwave would jam the wireless signal so if you were streaming something on the Blu-ray it would disrupt the movie. I hooked this up and instantly got connected to the internet and started streaming with good connection speeds and no interruptions.

Pros: Simple setup
Security options (if you share electricity with someone else??? Possible for apartment-dwellers I guess)
Power Saving (sleep) mode

Cons: Price (but you have to pay for the latest technology)

Other Thoughts: I bought this to try and get internet down to my cabin / storage building behind my house, in the woods. I ran power down there last year, and it took 450 feet of wire from my house electrical service to the panel in the building. Plus another 30 feet or so to the receptacle upstairs in the building... so that's 480 feet not counting the unknown length of wiring in the house.

I didnt bother checking if the receptacle in the house and the one in the building were on the same phase or not, but it worked regardless. The new technology Powerline AVs are supposed to work across phases anyway (but speed may suffer).

I didnt do any speed testing, but I was able to watch youtube and netflix on my laptop without any buffering. Internet browsing seemed decently fast as well.

I believe the theoretical connection speed I had was 60-80Mbps (down from 500)... so about 10-15% of maximum. I have 30meg service from Charter, so If you had DSL the speed loss over that much distance may be too mu

Pros: Worked great for a few days

Cons: Stopped working

Manufacturer Response:

Dear valued customer,

May I offer you 2 suggestions to use the powerline adapter?

1. Press the "Pair" key on one TL-PA511 for 5 seconds, and do the same thing on the other TL-PA511 within 2 minutes. They should communicate with each other again;
2. If it still does not work, we can offer you a replacement.
Please contact me @ steve.crow@tp-link.com and attach this manufacturer reply.
I'm more than happy to help you.

Best Regards!
TP-LINK Support Team
(866)225-8139
http://www.tp-link.com/us/support
http://www.facebook.com/TPLINK

Pros: doubled my connection speed

Cons: none yet, may now have to think about a more improvements to take advantage of this.

Other Thoughts: I was using another brand AV200 to connect my home and a workshop about 300ft away. It worked ok, although I got the lowest link quality light, I was getting 4-5Mbs up/down per speakeasy speedtest and it was adequate for streaming HD video from netflix. My speeds on wireless G after the powerline were the same as wired. Then one of the boxes started failing, and running really hot, so I decided to replace the pair with these. Since they are supposed to be good for a longer distance, I figured they would be more reliable.

It was plug and play, and I have now tested my laptop as getting double the download speed when wired directly into this box instead of wireless. So after running 300ft I'm getting 10Mbps download speeds. I may buy some other powerline boxes instead of upgrading everything to wireless-N, but my speeds are adequate for my needs anyway, I just wanted the improved reliability of the powerline connection.