The Verdict
The TRENDnet TPL-402E2K Powerline Adapter kit is a 500Mbps kit that has 2-1/2 time the potential of a 200Mbps kit. Much as Wi-Fi kits are subject to obstacles and distance between sender and receiver, powerline kits are subject to the quality of house wiring and other obstacles, such as breakers.
What may be a great design with a much appreciated feature in the bonus outlet, I could find only marginal improvements over a 200 Mbps powerline kit in a real-world situation at this particular point in time. Only a month ago, I was actually getting higher transfer rates (~2.8 Mbps) from three different 200Mbps powerline kits. This time around, I was getting higher rates (~2.0 Mbps) using the TRENDnet over the TP-LINK kit (~1.5 Mbps), however both were less than numbers obtained earlier.
Along with that, tests I performed on the TRENDnet kit when I eliminated such obstacle as breakers and incoming leg splitting, were great (~10 Mbps) in my opinion. These transmission rates were on a par with a wired 100Mb router.
The conclusion is that internal building line quality is such an overriding factor in how powerline kits work. They do seem to work quite nicely for Audio/Video applications. I my situation, and I stress *my* situation, I could not find a compelling need for a 500 Mbps device over a 200 Mbps device. In *your* situation, the results could very easily justify the higher bandwidth capacity.
Perhaps all the above could be condensed into one statement: the governing body that sets the powerline standards may need to do a better job in accounting for real world applications better than it does currently. I stress the word “Real” vs. “Artificial” in testing usability.
Once past the performance issues, there are only 2 areas left to consider if one is looking a powerline kit:
- features
- cost
The TRENDnet kit consists of a pair of wall wart adapters, which means one can power just one device on the receiving end, unless you add a switch. I do appreciate the bonus outlet feature, which did seemed to affect only slightly transmission rates. However, a home theatre area quite often consists of many LAN/WAN devices these days, so an integrated switch on the receiving end would be much more appreciated than the Bonus Outlet.
Finally, cost is always a significant consideration when considering a product. As the cost of the TPL-402E2K is significantly higher than the cost of 200 Mbps kits, performance should increase significantly also. In my testing, it simply did not.
