CONCLUSION

   We've been testing products by Linksys for quite a few years now and never have they let us down so when we saw that their flagship powerline adapter PLE500 only had a single LAN port and no electrical socket all our hopes fell on its performance levels and price. Indeed the PLEK500 500Mbps Powerline Homeplug AV2 Kit contains two compact yet solid adapters with very good performance levels but unfortunately these levels were simply not high enough for us to ignore the lack of two very important features such as multiple LAN ports and an built-in electrical socket. Of course even just a year ago we wouldn't be having this conversation since such features weren't as widely available but today they are so many products with them that we can't figure out the why Linksys hasn't followed the same path. We can only hope that they will soon but until then the PLE500 Powerline adapter seems to fall short.

   So what about price? Well the PLEK500 500Mbps Powerline Homeplug AV2 Kit by Linksys currently retails for USD97.71 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 79Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) a price tag which is actually more than most 500Mbps kits in the market currently. Sure the performance is there and you can always count on the quality from a manufacturer like Linksys but without the extra features offered by the competition things don't look good. Of course if your only goal is to find an compact powerline adapter with very good performance and you can afford to sacrifice a single electrical socket (and providing of course that 1 LAN port is sufficient for you) then we really suggest considering the PLEK500 500Mbps Powerline Homeplug AV2 Kit by Linksys however if the above don't apply then you might want to look elsewhere.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Size
- Very Good Performance
- 500Mbit/s Compatible
- AES 128bit Encryption

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Single LAN Port (For Some)
- No Electrical Socket (For Some)