I have bought a Dlink power line and surprisingly found that I can get one more for free.
Buy from store - Harvey Norman, Noel Leeming or JB Hi Fi - prices are similar.
This is through redemption only.
Enjoy
2 x D-Link Powerline DHP-309AV for $117 via Cashback Promotion
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Not to bash your post OP, but personally I recommend staying away from low tier Powerlines. I personally use the "D-Link PowerLine AV2 2000" and "TP-Link PA9020P" and they both work great. But anything below those models, they suck.
Powerlines take up a lot of space. Unless you get the ones that have power passthrough (like the TP-Link PA9020P), then you'll gonna have to find a dedicated socket just for it. In order to get the maximum performance, you should plug the Powerline into a power extender or something. It needs to have its own dedicated power socket and the power pins have to go all the way into the socket. I've seen cases where people try to plug the Powerline half way into the socket so that they create enough space to then plug something else into the other socket. Turns out that the speed gets cut by half if the Powerline isn't all the way in.
Furthermore, getting a low-end Powerline isn't future proof. It's much better to get a decent one that supports MU-MIMO. Don't know if your one is full duplex or not, but assuming it's not, then you're looking at 250/250 down/up instead of 500 down/up.
Based on my experiences with Powerline adaptors, D-Link have crappy support and don't really release firmware updates as often as TP-Link do. TP-Link at least gives you a utility to check the Powerline performance and performs better/faster as well.
Finally, I got both of those Powerline adaptors 2nd hand on Trademe for around $100 or less. Just shop around, don't pay heaps for budget Powerlines.
Just my 2cents.
If the unit doesn't perform as advertised you can return it to the retailer.
Not so much if you buy 2nd hand.
So there is that.
That's true. But that's why you always ask to test it before buying. Most electronics are of decent quality. You wont need to buy extended warranties etc. I've purchased and owned multiple 2nd items in the past and never really had any issues. Same idea as buying a house or a car, majority of times you are buying used and that's fine. The powerlines I own are like $250+ brand new if I recall correctly. Spending $60 or so was a nice "gamble" and it paid off.
Power line adapters rely largely on the quality of internal wiring (it might work perfectly in one house while doesn't at all in another). I don't think any 2nd hand seller is going to want to loan their items to you to do "some tests".
Of course if you are confident with the wiring you can buy a good quality 2nd hand for cheap. Unfortunately for most people they wouldn't have a clue and it's just easier to buy from a shop.@Zyo: Yeah, but you'll run into the exact same issue if you buy new. That's kinda the reason why I went with buying a 2nd hand in the first place. I could afford to lose $60~$100 but at least I'll have a top tier model, as opposed to spending the same amount on a crap model that gives me the same result due to shitty internal wirings.
I was actually originally going to pay full price for a brand new top tier model, but I wasn't sure how good my internal house wirings were and wasn't comfortable with the idea of spending that much on something that may or may not work well for my house. Obviously in the end, I only paid $60 for a used one and lucked out. The seller sold it because it didn't work well for him, which sucked for him.
My point is, if you buy a new one, you'll still have to test it at home. If it doesn't work, you'll have to take it back and ask for a refund (which may or may not be granted, as it's not really their fault that your house has crappy internal wirings and the product isn't faulty. It's also not ethical either). Whereas if you buy it cheap 2nd hand, you're not really losing too much.
These things are not meant to recreate a traditional wired ethernet network. They provide an alternative to wifi where people rent and can't go drilling holes in walls and stringing ethernet cables through the ceiling spaces. These ones are only 100Mbps ports anyway so it's not critical whether they're 250 or 500 Mbps on the powerline side. Not that they'll reach those speeds.
I have those cheap D-Link pass-through ones, I use them from the router in the lounge to the laptop in the next room. They're pretty terrible in comparison to proper wired ethernet. The jitter on mine is shockingly bad. But latency overall is okay, so general web surfing feels slightly more responsive than my terrible wifi. And when downloading a larger file the overall throughput is greater (it downloads faster).
Yes I could probably spend some money and muck around for hours and get a better wifi setup. But I already have these and they're adequate for my needs. As with anything, it depends what you want or need. If you're a gamer who thinks they need gigabit speeds and thinks they can tell the difference between a few milliseconds latency then by all means spend more to get better quality kit. Or run proper wired cabling.
But I'd wager that most people are just using them for connectivity rather than performance. If you're just browsing the web and doing your Windows updates, or just want to connect a device that doesn't have wifi (maybe an older TV or printer or something) then performance doesn't always matter. Especially if you only have a 12Mbps ADSL.
Definitely if you're regularly transferring large files, and you need alternative to wired / wifi, and want greater performance out of them, yes you'll need to get something better. The vendors are sharks when it comes to the marketing on these things. Just not everyone needs the highest performance and not everyone can pay extra for so called future proofing.
Appreciate your recommendations though - about time I looked into how they've changed. Will check those out.
That's the thing though, the low end models are not stable and often perform poorly. Connectivity is directly related to performance btw. Any spikes in your electrical wirings and the low end models would sometimes crap out. Especially if your wirings are old. You would then need to reset the adaptors. I've seen this with both Dlink and Tplink models.
I don't game or torrent or download anything heavy, I just watch Youtube and a few TV shows occasionally. So I'm not really a heavy user. The thing is, these low end models don't go anywhere near the advertised specs, but the high end models do. I max out on speedtests and internal NAS transfers, very good throughput and low latency and jitter. I recommend looking up reviews of the models and do some research into this to see why you should avoid low end models. Also, I recall the top tier TPlink I have was on sale at JB Hifi last year or so for around $150, not that much more to pay than this deal.
Also, if the port is only 100 Mbps, why do they advertise as 500Mbps? I havent really bothered checking but it seems kinda pointless.
It's basically like saying you don't want to go cheap on a PSU or motherboard, because they just arent worth the money even if they are cheap.
Of course, if you have a crappy interenet plan, it wont matter which model you get. But who really lives on ADSL these days? Majority arent. For the same money, I would still recommend getting a top tier model used.
I have these from when they did a similar deal a couple of years ago. They’re fine for very basic things like streaming Netflix but they’re not high performers. I’ve never been able to get more than 50Mbps out of them, even in a relatively new house.
Yeah, which is why the advertised specs is rubbish on low end models.
Thanks OP :)
Pretty good deal. Though I'd probably update it to "Get a D-Link DHP-309AV" for free rather than Buy one get one free. Since the one that you have to purchase is a different model to the free one that you get. The model for the one you have to buy is "DHP-P309AV"