Tenda AV1000 Gigabit Powerline Adapter Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The Tenda P1000 Gigabit Powerline Adapter Kit will set you back £42.96 on Amazon UK, $147.40 from Amazon US or €49.05 on the German Amazon, so how much of a bargain it is, depends on your location. The price for the UK and Germany however is very fair for what you get: Everything you need to get started with your network over circuitry at home.

Conclusion

I didn’t have high hopes for these when I got them as powerline ethernet, while useful, still has its flaws. I was however positively surprised by this kit and it worked better than expected. The two units found each other right away without the need to pair them and so did the network connection through them, as if they weren’t even there to begin with.

The Tenda P1000 adapters will blend in well with white walls and make you forget you ever installed them with their overall simple design. They are a little bit bulky, but that isn’t really an issue for a device like this. The package includes two network cables to connect the P1000s to your network, but otherwise there isn’t much, because you don’t need much. The installation is plug and play and couldn’t be simpler and the software is optional to use.

There are two negative things, or at least not good ones, that I’d like to point out. The adapters use passive cooling which means that they do produce quite a bit of heat and do get slightly hot after some time plugged in. It’s not so hot that you can’t take it and hold it, but still something one should consider when placing the unit. I also noticed a slight electrical peeping in standby mode from one of the devices. I however have to say that I do have a very good hearing for those high-pitched sounds and it might be a one-time issue.

We saw this Tenda P1000 perform the best speeds we’ve seen so far on powerlines with up to 250Mbit/s in our co-location tests and a link speed between the two units of 890Mbits

While the speeds did drop over longer distances, the longest distance tested would still bring enough speed for most users internet connection. This in return could allow you to place your router in a different and more suited location in your household compared to where the internet comes in and has its plug, to name the first situation that came to my mind. That way your main systems could be connected by the usual means, just with a lot less and shorter cables, while the internet connection runs through your power lines. A full setup with just these devices would be another scenario for a household of weekend surfers and where gigabit speeds just aren’t needed.

If we had a surfers choice award, I would give that to these devices as that is what they are perfect for: Internet and streaming traffic. They outperformed anything else we’ve tested on the powerlines before, so I’ll award it with the extreme performance award instead.

Pros:

• Gigabit Ethernet ports
• High-speed link of 1Gbit (900Mbits in our test)
• Best powerline speeds we’ve seen so far
• Fair price
• Plug and Play

Cons:

• Bit Bulky design
• Possibility of drop in performance due to older electrical wiring

“The Tenda P1000 Gigabit Powerline Adapter kit could be a real alternative to both long cables and wireless setups, but it highly depends on your network usage whether it suites or not. But there is no doubt that the Tenda P1000 does a great job in its area of operation.”

Thanks to Tenda for providing us with this sample.