Reviews for Apple USB Ethernet Adapter

I have good wireless at home and on campus, but thought I'd get this as a just-in-case accessory. Turned off Airport and connected the ethernet cable and the speed increase over our wireless was significant. Well worth the money and there when I need it.

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.

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.

This worked fine for a year with my MB Air (both Win 7/64 & Mt. Lion). Then it just died - not recognized at all as a USB device.

Like the title says, after a few months it just stopped working.

It does exactly what it's supposed to do. I knew ahead of time that it wouldn't give me gigabit speed. After all, it's utilizing a USB 2.0 port. However, it's still much faster than WIFI. FYI to the complainers, USB 2.0 speed is 480Mbps. That's all the faster that you will ever get with this, when using USB 2.0.

I also read some reviews stating that the adapter doesn't work with Lion. That is false. I'm using it with the latest Macbook Air, running Lion. It's plug and play.

I couldn't be happier! This is a very convenient little piece of hardware.

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.

It just works. I don't need this adapter normally, but it has proven handy in those rare circumstances when WiFi is unavailable or I need to transfer something large.

With several other reviews complaining about the lack of gigabit, I feel obliged to point out that USB 2.0 is not fast enough.

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.