Apple USB Ethernet Adaptor

Reviews for Apple USB Ethernet Adaptor

Customer Reviews and Ratings

3.5 out of 5 stars

Based on 46 reviews

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    good device to speed up

    • Written by

    this device speed up my connection to internet. no regret at all!!! easy to set up!!

    30 of 41 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Does its job

    • Written by from Lincoln University

    Does its job without trouble. Total plug-and-play. 100% compatibility as expected.

    Some people have complained that it's not gigabit ethernet, but do realize that this is a USB adapter and no USB 2.0 device is going to get anywhere close to gigabit ethernet speeds. Don't bother with those - attempting to get drivers to work isn't worth the headache.

    31 of 37 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Not Gigabit...

    • Written by from Washington

    1. Works as advertised 10/100mbps - It managed 9 Mbps = ~78mbps(not bad for a 100mbps device but still too slow). My restore from Time Capsule took an entire night+. Much slower than my 2 year old Macbook Pro with Gigabit.
    2. I've read a few reviews here that say Gigabit (1000mbps) isn't good on USB 2.0. These people may not have searched Amazon - There are other 2.0 devices that cost as much and provide 10/100/1000 with USB 2.0.
    3. Gigabit is 1000mbps and USB 2.0 is 480mbps - The reviews show that the adapters hit about ~280 mbps which is nearly 5x as fast - I'm not expecting it to defy the laws of physics, but that's better than 80...
    4. Apple hasn't updated this device since the Air was launched in 2008.
    5. I will be returning mine for one that works faster and costs $28.95 on Amazon.

    If you aren't using this to transfer large amounts of data, then it works well. Otherwise, I would look elsewhere.

    80 of 101 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Very cool - Use as a second network adapter

    • Written by from Ellington

    I'm an IT guy and used this as a second NIC on my MacBook Pro (currently running 10.7) to work on multiple networks at a time. Just assigned a static address to the USB NIC and kept my onboard NIC running my regular internet/inter office traffic.

    31 of 32 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Works as advertised.

    • Written by from Las Vegas

    Unfortunately, folks don't always fully understand the numbers they read.

    First, this adapter works fine on a MacBook Air running Lion. Plug and play.

    Second, this isn't a 1000Mbps Ethernet adapter, and has never been advertised as one. The USB bus wouldn't support that kind of transfer speed. The adapter tops out at 100Mbps because that's the only common-denominator speed between Ethernet and USB; there's no such thing as "480Mbps Ethernet," so you can't "fully utilize" the USB bus potential. Ethernet is either 10, 100, or 1000 for most desktop/laptop computers; 100 is the fastest that USB can handle. If you purchase this (or did so already) expecting faster speeds, then you had bad expectations.

    So this works as advertised.

    61 of 65 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Major Letdown-Check this B4 buy new Airbook

    • Written by from Albuquerque

    Writing this as I watch the meter telling me it'll be another 10 hours to move my data from my Airbook to my Mini running X-Server so I can drop back to Snow till I have time to update some of my old software. Can't trust only a time machine backup when planning to reformat computer.

    For 30 years I've been using Macs and never had to worry about I/O options, always the best, I have over 30 of em around my businesses. Get home with new Mac Air purchased on good faith without even considering checking the I/O options and looking forward to see how much faster my network will perform with the latest. Then connect my external monitor to the thunderbolt port (beautiful resolution on the 32" LED) and look around for the RJ-45 and realize it's not there. No prob, go grab one of these adapters and it'll be done (never mind the extra expense), after all USB speeds are almost same as Gbps. Get back and plug it in, Hmmm seems awfully slow for Gb which has been available on every Mac for at least 5 years, in fact normally the problem is finding other hardware to take advantage of Macs fastest I/O options. So what's wrong, OK ended up at this page, didn't say anything about speed on the package. Oh No it's only 10/100.

    So much for having a Gigabit Cat 6 hardwired house, it's like dropping back 10 years with ethernet at 10/100 speed. Probably be using my 4 year old MacBook and giving my new Airbook along with this adapter to my 3 year old kid since there aren't any other options for the external monitor and ethernet (can't use an 11" computer at home). But then again, why give him the adapter, the WiFi gets a full 100 Mbps anyway.

    Hmmm. Maybe they made the Airbooks a little too small.

    30 year Mac Lover who's a bit disappointed this time

    37 of 77 people found this useful

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  • 3.0 out of 5 stars

    It gets the job done.

    • Written by from Fort Lee

    Pros -
    Bootcamp driver.
    Stylish
    Plug and play


    Cons -
    Works only with Air
    Very slow for today's use.
    Does not take advantage of USB 2.0 speed (maxes out at 100mbps).
    Could be smaller.

    12 of 25 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Works with Lion

    • Written by from San Francisco

    Unlike the previous commenter, my experience with a 2011 MacBook Air 13" in Lion has been nothing but positive. I plugged the adapter in and it worked just as expected. Good stuff!

    47 of 52 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Does NOT work with Lion

    • Written by from Middleton

    Apparently this modem does not work in 64bit mode, which is the default for Lion. It appears I now have a useless piece of hardware hanging from the back of my iMac. Do not buy this if you have Lion or plan to upgrade.

    30 of 77 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    It works...

    • Written by from Maryville

    Gigabit speeds have been out for years and is even available in mainstream electronics. Why are these speeds not available is beyond me. Perhaps the usb 2.0 bus is too slow? I am disappointed that I am forced to use outdated technology when connecting my client's MacBook Air to Ethernet.

    25 of 38 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    usb modem

    • Written by from SAN DIEGO

    I like to send faxes directly from my iMac, and this has been a boon to let me save paper, and keep all faxes in the same folder. Very good, reliable, and simple.
    My only caveat with the piece is that it will only work in a 32bit environment, which is what *no* new iMacs come with. And the 64bit platform truly is a very lean and powerful machine.

    11 of 31 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    doesn't work with time machine

    • Written by

    Having a Macbook Air for almost two years, I look forward to a faster connection and hence choose this 100Mbps adapter. Unfortunately, this connection would allow me to use the time machine enabled on my NAS. ....

    17 of 41 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Works when it works... but

    • Written by from San Jose

    I have purchased four of these devices for my wife's MacBook Air and only one is still working. I have also replaced two of them through the Apple store. I am extremely disappointed with the quality of this simple but essential device.

    50 of 54 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Very satisfied with the adapter

    • Written by from Nacka

    I have a Macbook Pro with a broken ethernet card and I cannot use wifi so I decided to buy this adapter. However, the package says MacBook Air only - and in the retail store (macoteket.se) they were not very helpful, they just said what was on the package and didn't event wanted to try the adapter with a different Mac. When I came home, I just plugged the adapter in and voila - my mac announced the USB Ethernet was found and that I can check it in the Network Preferences and I got connected.

    What I like on this adapter is the cable between the USB and ethernet sockets which makes it really more usable and prettier. The price is also VERY nice. My OS is Snow Leopard 10.6.7.

    24 of 26 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Now Only Works With MacBook Air

    • Written by from Port Orchard

    This little gem used to be the device of choice for adding a second Ethernet interface to a Mac Mini Server and I'd been using one that way for about a year. After doing a software update to 10.6.6 it stopped working. Forewarned is forearmed – it appears that Apple is finally enforcing the MacBook Air system requirement. Bummer. Two stars for downgraded functionality.

    486 of 586 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    I have 3 of these and only 1 works!

    • Written by from Tijeras

    I have three of these adapters. I bought one with my new MacBook Air which works fine. I went to the local Apple store and bought two more and neither of those work??? Has anyone seen problems with newer version of these units?

    17 of 34 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Works perfectly in Linux

    • Written by

    I'm not the usual Apple user, so my use is a bit odd. I wanted to share that these work perfectly under Linux (Fedora13+ at least). I've got three of these on a netbook running as an MLPPP (bonded DSL internet) and it works great. For $29 each, the price is surprisingly reasonable. They're on a cable, so putting multiple on tightly connected USB headers isn't a problem, either.

    49 of 56 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Awesome, No Problems

    • Written by from Newton

    I got a MacBook Air for my birthday last year and got this device. It works awesome no problem.

    15 of 19 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Perfect

    • Written by from BRUNSWICK

    Product works as expected.

    To clarify something, I see people complaining about the speed only being 100Mbps. The reason apple did not waste their time putting a 1Gbps controller in this device is that USB 2.0 only supports a maximum transfer rate of 480Mbps. To put a Gigabit controller in this would only cause issues.

    41 of 44 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    It just works, like all Apple products!

    • Written by from Hialeah

    Purchased this for my MacBook Air and it works flawlessly! I use wifi 90% of the time, but for those rare occasions that wired is the only way to go, it's nice to know that I just jack right in and get to work. I work in IT so having access to both wired and wireless connections is a MUST for my line of work!

    By the way, a quick word about the the adapter only being 10/100 vs Gigabit capable. This is not due to Apple being "cheap" or controlling, but rather has to due with the inherent limitation of the USB connection itself. See, by definition, USB 2.0 has a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 480 Mbps. This means that USB 2.0 - at a maximum - is capable of less than half of the maximum Gigabit speed (1,000 Mbps). So even if Apple would've included this feature in the device itself, the bus the USB connects to internally would prevent it from ever reaching anything near that speed, plus, the device probably would've cost about 300% more since most Gigabit-enabled products usually cost approx. that much more for that capability.

    My only (slight) complaint is the lack of status/link lights on the device. Again, from an IT standpoint, that feature is a welcome addition, however, being an Apple product, Apple does not include these lights on any of their products (MacBooks, Apple TV, Mac Pros, etc.) so I didn't expect them to include it...just a personal preference is all!

    446 of 501 people found this useful

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