- Virtual CIO
Technology Risk Assessment: A Guide for Business Leaders
8 Jul, 2025




£68.38 inc. VAT
AI-generated summary
The TP-Link TL-SG108PE is one of those switches that quietly does exactly what you need in a typical small office, while staying easy on the budget. For £56.60 ex-VAT, the value is solid if you’re trying to run a handful of IP cameras and/or access points without messing about with separate power supplies. It’s “managed” in the practical sense—enough control to tidy up VLANs/traffic basics and keep things predictable—so it’s not the kind of unmanaged box that turns into a headache the moment you want anything a bit more structured.
Who should buy it: small offices, retail units, home-office setups with proper network hygiene, and any reseller install where you need 8 gigabit ports and PoE for a few endpoints (cameras, VoIP phones, small APs). Who might not: if you’re expecting deep enterprise-style management or lots of advanced routing, this won’t feel like that class of product. Also, if you’re purely building a “plug-and-forget” network, you’d typically get away with an unmanaged switch and save even more—unless you specifically want the extra control that managed L2 brings.
Overall, I’d recommend it for straightforward, PoE-heavy access layer needs where budget matters, and you want management without paying for it. It’s a sensible, no-drama choice—just don’t treat it like a core switch.

Netgear
NETGEAR GS316PP - Switch - unmanaged - 16 x 10/100/1000 (PoE+) - desktop, wall-mountable - PoE+ (183 W)

D-Link
D-Link 16-port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Desktop Switch

TP-Link
TP-Link TL-SF1005P - Switch - unmanaged - 5 x 10/100 (4 PoE) - desktop - PoE (58 W)

TP-Link
TP-Link TL-SG1210PP V1 - Switch - unmanaged - 2 x 10/100/1000 (PoE++) + 6 x 10/100/1000 (PoE+) + 1 x combo Gigabit SFP/RJ-45 (uplink) + 1 x 10/100/1000 (uplink) - desktop - PoE++ (123 W)