TP-Link 5-Port 10/100Mbps Desktop Switch with 4-Port PoE

Product Overview

AI-generated summary

If you just need a cheap, reliable “add more wired ports” box, this TP-Link 5-port 10/100 switch is hard to beat at £25.63 ex‑VAT. For small offices, home offices, or light-duty workstations—think connecting a couple of PCs, an IP phone, a basic access point, or a few networked devices—10/100 is usually fine. It’s also simple to live with: no setup drama, no management fuss, and it’s the sort of switch you can hand to non-network people without them breaking anything.

The catch is the speed ceiling. If your environment involves lots of file transfers, cameras streaming heavily, or anything that benefits from faster LAN links, you’ll feel the bottleneck. Also, PoE is only useful if the devices you’re powering actually match what the switch can deliver (and the total power draw fits)—otherwise you’re paying for PoE you don’t get full value from. My advice: buy it for “current need is modest, budget is tight” scenarios; skip it if you’re planning to scale bandwidth or you regularly push big data across the network.

**Who it suits:** small UK offices, dev/test labs, and basic network expansions where most connections don’t need more than 100Mbps. **Who should avoid:** anything that’s already near saturation on the LAN or where you expect to grow into faster switching.