Netgear XAVB5001

Netgear Powerline AV 500 Adapter Kit

It’s hard to beat the convenience of a home Wi-Fi network but it can’t touch wired connectivity when it comes to throughput speed. Unfortunately, wiring your home with CAT-5 cabling can get expensive and messy if you don’t know what you’re doing. Enter Netgear’s Powerline AV 500 Powerline Adapter Kit ($159.99 list), an incredibly easy to use solution that turns every power outlet in your home into a Gigabit wired Ethernet port. In my testing, the AV 500 delivered almost ten times the transfer speed of my Wi-Fi router. While that's less than a wired connection, it's just fine for streaming movies and transferring large data files and folders. The AV 500 kit consists of two XAV5001 Powerline adapters, two 6.5 foot Ethernet cables, and a Resource CD containing a Powerline Utility and an Installation Guide. Unfortunately, the disc does not include a user manual; instead, it provides a link to an online manual, which may be inconvenient if you’re having trouble getting the adapters to work for some reason. However, the odds of that happening are slim to none as Powerline technology is the epitome of plug and play.