Product Review:

Belkin Powerline AV+ Starter Kit

(F5D4075)

By Jason Gillard

I have reviewed a Powerline networking kit in the past from Belkin (you can see that review here), and I really loved it.  It had the features I wanted, it was easy to install and it helped me to get Internet up to my PS3 which is where I needed it.  There were very few problems that I had with that kit, one was the speed was only rated at 40mbps and the other was that the lights on the device were just way to bright.  Belkin has now come out with the Powerline AV+ Starter Kit (F5D4075).  This unit seems to address all the problems I had with the first one, and it also had a few new tricks up it's sleeve. 

So I contacted Belkin and they sent me out one of these kits to review.  For those of you who don't know, Powerline Networking allows you to create a network using the powerlines in your house. You basically plug in the first adaptor into the wall and attach it to your router via a RJ45 Ethernet cable. Then you can go to anywhere in your house that you need Internet and plug in another adapter and bingo you have a stable Internet connection.  When I first heard about this technology I thought to myself what a great idea.  The issue I had was I could not get a good wireless signal where I was and it would be quite painful to try to run networking cable up to that room, so this technology was the perfect fit.

The first thing I noticed when opening the box is that the exterior of the adaptors has gotten a face lift.  Everything looks sleek and shiny and nothing like the plastic white boxes the other adaptors were.  This would be more at home with your home entertainment system.  It actually blends in very well with my PS3.  So the first test was to test the brightness of the LED's on the unit.  The original adaptors I reviewed were so bright that at night it would light up my bedroom and I would think I was part of the Blue Man Group.  The new adaptors still had blue LED's but they did not look as bright.  That night I turned the light off and was happy to see that my room did not have a strange blue tint to it.  These LED's were bright enough to see that they were on, but not so bright that it kept me awake at night.  So Belkin has fixed that problem.

The installation of these adaptors was just as easy as the original kit I reviewed.  You plug it into your router and then take the adaptor to where ever you want to put it and voila! instant Internet!  One of the great features of this kit is that the adaptor has 3 networking ports compared to the original adaptor's one port.  With more and more devices becoming Internet enabled this is a welcome feature.  Having three ports is great and makes it way more versatile. 

Next up was a test to determine if these adaptors could handle streaming HD video to my PS3.  I started streaming an episode with HD content to my PS3.  It played perfectly not skipping or stuttering a bit.  I know if I tried to stream this over my N router it would not be that smooth.  The Belkin Powerline adaptors came through with flying colours and was able to play my HD content without any hiccups.    I also ran a speed test and it showed that the speed was just as fast as plugging directly into the modem.