Tenda TEG1105P-4-63W — 5-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch with 4-Port PoE

Buying it, and when not to

The TEG1105P-4-63W is a 5-port gigabit desktop switch with PoE on four ports and a 63W budget. Small, gigabit, powered - the combination that most small commercial jobs actually need.

This is the default small PoE switch for access point work. Two or three ceiling access points in a shop, an office or a guest house run properly off this: gigabit ports so the access points are not throttled, PoE so there is no adaptor in the ceiling, and a small enough body to sit on a shelf beside the router. It is equally good for a few gigabit-class IP cameras where 100Mbps switches would be too slow.

The 63W budget is the thing to check. Four modern access points can approach it, and a switch that cannot power everything at once produces intermittent faults that look like WiFi problems. If you have more than about three or four powered drops, go to the TEG1110PF-8-120W, which both adds ports and nearly doubles the watts. If your drops are low-power fixed cameras and the budget is tight, the fast-Ethernet TEF1105P-4-63W is cheaper and is adequate for that specific job. And if the site needs VLANs or guest separation, the cloud-managed TEG2206P-4-63W is the same size with management added.